


That Good

by Filmsterr



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Age Difference, Alpha Castiel/Omega Dean Winchester, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Attempted Rape/Non-Con, Castiel is a Sweetheart, First Meetings, Gay Panic, Jealousy, John Winchester's A+ Parenting, M/M, Pie, Pining, Protective Castiel, Slow Burn, identity crisis, kind of
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-05
Updated: 2018-11-25
Packaged: 2019-03-27 14:10:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 61,750
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13882515
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Filmsterr/pseuds/Filmsterr
Summary: A hand reaching across the table cordially interrupts Dean’s spiraling thoughts. He looks up and he sees that the guy has that look on his face again, and it makes him feel squirmy.“I’m Castiel, by the way,” he introduces himself with a smile.Dean stares open-mouthed at his hand, making no effort to offer his own in return. “I’m… trying to do my homework.”What is this guy even getting at here? He just waltzes up to a stranger in a public place and sayshey we’re soulmates or something like it?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is one of the twenty ideas I've had floating around on my computer/in my head for a longer-version story that I felt randomly inspired to finish last night. Could possibly be continued into a mini-series type thing, depending if there's anything call for that kind of thing. If you guys want to see more, let me know!

As usual, Dean is holed up his favorite corner coffee shop. He’s taken over a whole booth, with all his things- homework and notebooks- strewn across the entire table. 

It’s not closing time yet, but Dean will be there when it is. This place has become his preferred place to spend his time when after school when he’s trying to avoid going home.

Which, lately, has been more often than not. So, instead of dealing with the fuss of going home and sitting through tense silences and pointed stares, he just stays out. Most days, he keeps a bag packed with him so that he can just stay with Charlie at her place, or alternate on other friends’ couches if he feels like he’s asking too much of her. Last week, he didn’t sleep at home for one single night and nobody said a single word about it to him. He wondered if maybe that hadn’t even noticed at all, or else they’d been glad to be rid of him. 

“Ouch,” he hisses to himself. The latte he’d gone to sip without thinking is too hot, and it burns his tongue. He hears someone next to him let out a deep chuckle, and he peers around curiously to see if they are laughing at his expense. He doesn’t see anyone staring at him, so he ducks his head down again and goes back to work. 

That’s other reason he spends so much time here, beside it being a place where he can actually relax away from all the bullshit: his homework. It takes him _hours_ to get all of it done. He’s not smart, not by a long shot. But he tries hard. Really hard, he thinks, and he’s probably going to have to try even harder now that…

“Ugh,” he groans and his drops his head onto the table in front of him. This is gonna be a more-than-one-coffee kinda day. 

When he lifts his head, he notices that someone has taken a spot at a chair not too far away from his table. It’s not as if the place is deserted by any means, but this particular person irks Dean in a certain way. 

He’s seen this guy before. Here, at the cafe. And that’s fine, it’s totally possible in a small place like Lawrence, two people are regulars of the same spot. But this guy… Dean just catches him staring sometimes. And not like normal staring. He’s got this funny look on his face, like…. like he’s in love with Dean, or something. 

It makes him feel weird, so Dean looks away as soon as the guy notices him and goes back to suffering through his chemistry assignment. 

After he finishes that- and it takes _a while_ , it’s dark outside now- he goes up to get a second beverage from the bar. He returns to his table and opens his english anthology book so he can start analyzing the poem he’s been assigned, when he feels a strange presence. 

He lifts his head again and, for some reason, his eyes go right to the guy. The one sitting near him. He’s staring, again. But this time he doesn’t make any effort to move away. He just keeps staring, and Dean is staring back now. 

It must be thirty seconds of a full-on staring contest, and thirty seconds is longer than it seems. Finally, the guy gets up- without taking his eyes off Dean- and starts to approach the booth. That’s when Dean finally looks away, goes back to pretending to focus on his work but really all he can think about is how every step this stranger is taking is bringing him closer and closer. 

When he gets to the table at last, Dean doesn’t raise his head. Just keeps his nose in a book, while he secretly tries to gain as much information as he can about his visitor from his shoes.

“Hi,” he hears from above him, and he still has no idea why this man is here or what to do about it. 

“Um, hi?” he says, raising his head, and he’s pretty sure it comes out at rude but he also doesn’t care too much. 

The guy laughs to himself, and it’s so low it sounds like a tuba to Dean. “You must think I’m a total creep.”

He’s smiling in a friendly way when he says it, but it doesn’t make Dean feel much better. So he just sort of quirks his mouth into a half-smile and gives a non-committal shrug. 

The guy’s eyes light up a bit. He leans forward a pinch and squints at Dean, like he’s sizing him up for something. “I’ve just… I’ve seen you around a bunch. Here, at the cafe, but other places too.”

“Yeah, I know,” grumbles Dean. He’s always _staring_. Does he think Dean doesn’t notice?

The man gestures to the bench across from Dean and raises his eyebrows. Again, Dean shrugs, because what else can he do? So the guy slides in to the booth and takes a seat. “Can I ask how old you are?” he asks, seemingly out of nowhere. 

Dean frowns, confused by the question, but answers anyway. “I’m sixteen.”

“Sixt--” the guys practically screeches out, so loud that Dean jumps a little, “Sixteen… oh my god, I’m going hell.” He says the last part in a resigned way, wiping a hand over his face. 

Dean does not know what to say to that, so he just sits still and waits for the stranger to either go on or leave. 

A few long seconds go by before the guy gets it together and looks at Dean, a little intense. He leans in across the table. “Listen, you’re a little young, so I don’t know how much of this you’ll get. I mean, your sense of smell is barely developed yet. You must have presented, what-- two months ago?”

“Hey!” Dean calls out suddenly, before he can stop himself. The subject is still sore, and he’s certainly not going to be harassed by some random dude in a coffee shop about it. 

“No, no, that’s not--” the guy pauses, shakes his head. “This is it: you smell really, _really_ good to me.”

Dean’s mouth drops open in a soft, little _o._

“Do you understand what I mean by that?”

Dean nods, dumbly. The idea of it is quite big and he doesn’t feel properly prepared to handle it. “You mean, _that good_?” he asks, nervously, hoping for a different answer. 

The man nods gravely. “ _That_ good. Better than anyone else I’ve ever seen in my life, and… I’ve been around. Like, I only frequent this coffee place so I can smell and be near you… kind of good.”

At the last part, he goes quiet and a little sheepish. He must be able to read Dean’s body language, which is shouting _freaked the fuck out_ at the top of its lungs. 

“But, I’m only sixteen,” he offers, even though that information is already on the table and frankly makes no difference, “and I only presented two months ago.”

_And I’m not gay_ , he wanted to add on, but for some reason he felt unable to. 

What this guy is telling him is a lot to handle. 

Dean still hasn’t adjusted to his presentation. All his life, ever since he was five years old, everyone had assumed he’d be an alpha. He’s great at sports, and he’s a killer with the ladies. He works on cars and loves the dirt and grease under his nails. His dad was so proud of him, of his boy. It hadn’t even occurred to them that Dean could be… what he is. 

Fuck, he can barely think it to himself. 

A hand reaching across the table cordially interrupts Dean’s spiraling thoughts. He looks up and he sees that the guy has that look on his face again, and it makes him feel squirmy. 

“I’m Castiel, by the way,” he introduces himself with a smile. 

Dean stares open-mouthed at his hand, making no effort to offer his own in return. “I’m… trying to do my homework.”

What is this guy even getting at here? He just waltzes up to a stranger in a public place and says _hey we’re soulmates or something like it_?

He has the decency to look a little bit ashamed, which makes Dean feel… something. Maybe better. He can’t tell. 

“I’m sorry,” he apologizes quickly. “I know that this must sound nuts--”

“You’re not wrong,” Dean bites off.

“But I just couldn’t go on if I didn’t… let you know,” he finishes. He straightens up in his seat. “...do you think you’d let me take you to dinner tonight?”

_No_ , Dean thinks instantly. _No way. Not tonight. Not ever. No way, Jose._

But again, he finds that the words just refuse to leave his mouth. It’s such a weird sensation. 

“I have a lot of work to get done,” he says instead, as an excuse, and it’s so much less harsh than he wants to be. 

Castiel-- if that even is his name, what the hell kind of name is that-- starts to pout a little. His blue eyes go wide and sad, which for some weird reason makes Dean feel sad. He doesn’t know why and he _does not_ like it. 

“Well,” Castiel proposes softly. “If you want, I could sit here with you while you do your work…. or, if you want I can get out of your hair.”

And there it is, the out he needs. Castiel has handed it to him and yet Dean for some reason doesn’t take it. “Alright, fine,” he grumbles, and rearranges the papers in front of him as if to distract himself. “You can sit here, I guess.”

Castiel beams like Dean’s never seen a person do it before. “Great, let me buy you a coffee.” His eyes fall to the full cup in front of Dean. “Right. You already have a drink. How about something to eat? A pastry?”

Dean turns back to his homework. He really doesn’t want this guy buying him anything. It will just be one more thing he owes someone in the world, and Dean doesn’t like to be in anyone’s debt.

But… he’s also really hungry. He moves one shoulder in a nonchalant shrug. “I could eat a piece of pie.”

“Pie,” the guy repeats with a grin, like it’s the single greatest gift Dean possibly could have offered him. “Great! I’ll be right back.” And he runs off over to the counter so quick it’s like he’s trying to get the order in before Dean changes his mind. 

Dean’s eyes are automatically drawn to his retreating form, the loose hoodie around his top half and the tight jeans he wears below that. He forces his eyes back to his homework. He doesn’t have time for any crap like this right now. 

From english, he’s onto trig, which is difficult on a _good_ day, and right now he wouldn’t classify this as a good day. It’s definitely a weird one. 

Castiel comes bounding back with a plate in his hand, on which sits a piece of pie and a single fork. Dean feels silently grateful that he didn’t want to share the pie or any bullshit like that. He lets Castiel drop the plate in front of him and waits a few seconds before he picks up the utensil. 

“There’s like a ton of flavors over there.” Castiel slides back onto the bench “Wasn’t sure what you liked, so I went with cherry, which I would argue is the best of all flavors.”

Dean flicks his eyes up and delivers a heavy squint, but says nothing. This guy is talking to him like they’ve known each other forever; like if he can just pretend that this isn’t a fucking crazy-ass situation then maybe Dean will start to believe it too. _Fat freakin’ chance of that._

“That’s fine,” mutters Dean. His actual favorite is apple, but he’s not exactly willing to give out any personal details about him. “Thanks.”

He turns over a new leaf in his math notebook and settles into a new assignment. And this Castiel dude says nothing. He sits quietly across the booth with his hands folded in front of him, content to just watch Dean do fuck-all.

Dean wonders to himself if the guy is still smelling him. The idea vaguely creeps him out. He wishes he could understand the whole thing a little more. His own sense of smell hasn’t even started to develop yet.

But still, out of curiosity, he scrunches up his nose and attempts to sniff the air in a sneaky way that won’t draw any suspicion. Castiel’s eyes flash at him in any case, and Dean instantly moves for his mug and pretends it was the coffee he’d been inhaling. 

“What are you working on?”

Dean places his coffee down without looking up. “Trigonometry.”

Castiel leans over the table to peer at Dean’s note. His face gets much too close to his own for Dean’s liking. “You understand all that?” 

Actually, he doesn’t. In an other situation, he might have thought about asking, _know anything about Cartesian coordinates?_ But not today. Not here. 

Instead he answers with a cool “Yeah.”

Castiel nods appreciatively. There’s a glimmer in his eye that makes Dean feel weird. Again. “I’m more of a humanities person. I majored in history at college.”

That’s the first remotely interesting thing he’s said so far. Dean pauses in his writing and finds that a number of questions leap to mind. He wouldn’t mind knowing what kind of history the guy had studied, or what kind of job was even associated with that.

He bites down on his lower lip and continues in on his calculating. 

“Now I work at the library at the university in their scholarly article department,” Castiel rambles on, “It’s not the most effective us of my degree, but I like it. And hopefully it’s just a stepping stone to the next move.” 

Dean can’t help but to snort at that. Castiel seems to be completely thrilled by the sign, if the look on his face is any indication. “What about that is so funny to you?” he asks excitedly, sitting forward in his seat. 

“An alpha librarian,” he scoffs. “Never heard that one before.”

Castiel shrugs a shoulder, and his smiles grows a little wider. “I’m not your typical alpha.”

It sounds like a line, so Dean rolls his eyes, even though he’s pretty sure the guy is being sincere. The truth is he doesn’t seem like other alphas; here he is essentially proposing a meting with Dean in some weird roundabout kind of way- and yet the whole time he’s kept a respectful distance and his hands to himself. He hasn’t once bared his teeth or snarled, or tried to scent Dean without asking. Hell, all he wanted to do was buy Dean pie, which he could definitely get on board with.

He’ll probably be a great mate for some nice omega some day. But he’s gonna have to wait at least a little while longer, ‘cause unfortunately for him, that’s not Dean. 

The trill of a bell marks another customer. It pulls Dean out of his thoughts and reminds him of where they are. He looks around the rest of the cafe and finds it practically empty. The only other person in there is the tattooed girl working behind the counter, who looks bored and ready to go home. It reminds Dean that he still has to figure out where he’s going tonight-- he should text Charlie and see if her couch is free. 

“I guess they’re closing soon… Did you want anything else to eat or drink?”

“Huh? What?” Dean slips his phone back into his pocket and hopes that he hears an answer soon. Time had kind of gotten away from him today, he normally lets her know sooner if he’s planning to crash at hers. He supposed that if he doesn’t hear from her, he could go to his own house… but thinking of the look his dad had given him over the breakfast table this morning, he really doesn’t want to. 

Castiel nods his chin in the direction of the empty shop around them. “I’m guessing they’ll probably be kicking us out soon. Do you want anything else before they close?”

The pie is still sitting half-eaten on the plate in front of him. “No,” Dean responds curtly. And then, after a pause, “I’m good, thanks.”

“Alright.” Castiel sits with his back pressed up straight against the cushion of the booth. He taps his fingers against the table. 

Dean sighs in a resigned way. “I guess I’d better go then.” He doesn't know if he's going to Charlie's yet, and he doesn't want to leave.  

Castiel sits up at attention. His eyes are shining with more interest every time Dean opens his mouth. Is that because of him? 

“I can help you carry your stuff,” he volunteers excitedly, already standing to attention in preparation. _Jeez, Alphas are weird._

Dean gives him a side-eyed look and replies, “No, that’s okay.” He starts gathering up his materials and stuffing them into his bag with a little less care than normal. He throws the bag over his and starts to make his way to the door. 

Castiel follows him. “Do you need a ride home? I can drive you.”

The bell sounds again as Dean opens the door to leave, but he freezes in the middle of the movement. “I… I’m not going home.” Why did he just admit that? He doesn’t know, but Castiel is staring at him in a _new_ way now and he didn’t even think that was possible. “I don’t know where I‘m going. I’m waiting to hear from a friend who-- oh, fuck.”

Just as he pulls out his cell phone to see if Charlie’s written back yet, his phone makes a distressed noise to alert him that the battery is at less than ten percent. Damn. He should have charged it while he was at the table…. he’d been too distracted. Damn it. 

“What?” Castiel asks, all concerned, like this is somehow his problem, “What is it?”

Dean shakes his head. “No, it’s just… my phone’s dying. And I don’t have anywhere to charge it.” So now he’ll have to just wander the streets and hope she responds before it loses all its juice and he has to go back home with his stupid omega tail between his legs. 

“Come to my place.”

Dean turns toward him and tries to look as shocked and indignant as he feels. 

Castiel immediately starts apologizing, “Sorry, sorry. I didn’t mean that like-- _come_ to my place, it’s not a command-- I just mean. If you want to, you’re free to come over to my apartment and charge your phone.” He throws in a smile that Dean finds begrudgingly… pleasing. “I have multiple wall sockets.”

The girl from behind the counter has started turning over chairs beside them to sweep the floor, and it’s then that Dean remembers they’re still standing in the doorway of the cafe. He waves an apology to her and then steps out into the street, leaving room beside him for Castiel to join. 

“Why are you being so nice to me?”

No one has been nice to Dean in a long time unless they wanted something. Even before he presented, people only wanted to hang out with him because he was popular, or because of who his dad was. Nobody…. nobody just wanted him for him. 

Castiel doesn’t say anything for a while. He just looks at Dean. At first, like he’s perplexed, and then like there’s something he finds funny. Dean feels very much on the opposite side of his _alpha librarian_ comment earlier, and it feels… weird. 

This whole thing is too weird to describe.

“I guess I must smell real freakin’ nice, huh?” he mutters as a joke at last, going to scratch at the back of his neck. He adjusts his backpack over one shoulder and then finally looks up at Castiel again. 

“Yeah,” Castiel says to him. It’s very soft and very sweet and he doesn’t seem to be kidding at all, “You do.”

Dean checks his phone again. Nothing from Charlie. The sky is dark and it’s cold out, and due to the recent changes in his life and body, he isn’t exactly comfortable with being out alone at night in the street. 

So, better with this Castiel guy than nowhere, right? 

Dean starts to turn away even before he begins talks. He doesn’t want anyone to get the wrong idea. “Alright, whatever. Just… lead the way. And keep your hands to yourself.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The much-awaited continuation. 
> 
> Looking forward to hearing what you all think.

“Dean? Come take a seat in my office.” 

Dean looks up from his locker across the empty hallway, to see Coach Singer standing in the doorway of his office. He doesn’t remember doing anything particularly disruptive, so he’s a little cautious as he follows orders and shuffles into the small room; but lately he’s been getting real used to receiving consequences for things he never did, so might as well tack on another one. 

“Go ahead and grab that chair, boy.”

Dean does, making a bit of a show of raising his eyebrows as he does. 

Coach sinks into a chair opposite Dean, looks him over for a minute, his eyes small and scrutinizing. Dean feels a flush rise on his neck but tries to play it cool. He makes sure to sit up, back straight, posture confident. 

The coach leans forward onto his desk and sighs. “Look, Dean. I don’t want to do this anymore than you want to hear it. But… you’re off the team."

Dean practically leaps out of his chair as he yells out, “Why?” It’s overdramatic and comes off as whiny, childish. 

He has a pretty good idea why Bobby would want him off the team. But it’s stupid and unfair and it makes Dean feel too pissed off to be embarrassed.  

“You know damn well why,” Singer says, but his eyes are sad and there’s no heat to it. Dean sinks back into his chair, a deep frown pulling down on his lips and creating indentations in his lower face. Coach deflates, running a hand over his unkempt facial hair. “I can’t have a team full of alphas all hopped-up on testosterone and adrenaline, and then… you.” His head hangs as he mutters between closed lips, “You went into heat last week, boy.” 

The redness on his face doubles and Dean wishes more than anything that the floor would open up and swallow him whole. He wants to grab his bag and slink out of the office and hop on a bus that’ll take him far away from here. Far away from the this conversation, and far away from anyone who ever knew him, and really, _really_ far away from anyone who knows what he is. 

“It was only a partial one,” he mutters as shame heats his face up. Could anything possibly be worse than watching himself make the steep decline from star of the team to a pathetic sack of hormones right in his coach’s eyes?  

Those eyes that travel over him, squinting and scrutinizing, like he’s trying to ascertain just where and how Dean has changed. Which parts of his body house the weak spots that must come along with his newfound presentation. 

It irritates Dean to no end. Crawls up under his skin and makes a home there, nipping and biting at his nerves until he wants to sit up and yell out that he’s still exactly the same, he hasn’t changed one bit, and anyone who thinks he had could go fuck themselves. 

“Yeah, well a full one’s coming,” Bobby says dismissively.  

Dean slumps back into the seat and groans. He knows that's true. He might have had a chance to avoid it, if he could get his hands on the suppressants he would fucking kill for. But, what a god damn surprise, they won’t freaking give them to you if you’re under eighteen without your parents’ consent. His dad wouldn’t talk for him long enough for him to ask, and his mom wouldn’t say yes without his dad’s go-ahead. 

Which doesn’t make any sense considering how they reacted to the… the thing. You’d think hid dad would _want_ him to get the suppressants so he didn’t have to worry about it anymore. Didn’t have to worry about him. 

The way his dad had looked at Dean when he smelled it on him. Dean was sure that if he hadn’t gone up and locked himself in his bedroom, they would have kicked him out right then. Not that… not that it would even matter, really, but… it’s home. He likes knowing that he can go back there, when he needs to. 

And maybe, also, he’s still holding out hope. For his mom, at least. He thinks maybe his mom, and Sam, might be able to stand being around him again someday. Sammy barely even knows what’s going on, he’s just following what Dad’s doing. But Dean can see it in his eyes that he wants to talk, wants to walk across the hallway and go back to the way things used to be. 

Sammy’s gonna be an alpha. Maybe Dean’s word isn’t worth crap on the subject, given his history of incorrect predictions. But Sam’s different. He’s springing up like a tree, he’ll probably be at least a head taller than Dean. 

And Dean… he’s always been pretty. He never minded when his long eyelashes or rosy cheeks had helped him pull in the girls. Now, he’d trade them in a heartbeat even to be a fucking beta. Jesus. 

“It’s not a good idea,” Coach adds on after a few minutes of painful silence, “it’s not safe for you.” 

Dean huffs indignantly at that. “I don’t get to choose what’s safe for me?”

“I don’t think you know what’s safe for you. Not yet. And anyway, it’s not good for the other boys either.”

Cool. Real fuckin’ cool. So he’s just gonna have to get used to people making decisions for him and him not even being allowed to have any god damn say in the matter. 

“Is there a point in fighting this?”

Coach Singer sighs again, with a sad shake of his head. “I’m sorry, Dean.”

Yeah. Dean’s sure he’s real sorry about it. 

“Screw this,” he curses, standing to his feet in a huff. He doesn’t have to stay here and take this. He isn’t part of the team, fine. Then he’ll get right the hell out of here. 

He’s stopped on his way out only by the sound of his name. He begrudgingly turns back around to look at the man he once admired like a second father. 

“Listen, boy. I’m just lettin’ you know that I fought for ya. I think it’s real unfair, the way people... treat y’all.”

Maybe, if Dean weren’t so filled to the brim with rage, he’d hear that for what it was. He’d take a second to appreciate Bobby as the man who’d helped raise him from a boy into a man, for whatever that was worth now. 

But he doesn’t. He turns away without another word, already worried that he’s being too emotional.  

He leaves from straight through the gym entrance, and has a sudden urge to take up smoking, just so he could have something to do with his hands while this angry energy burns inside him. Instead he balls them- his hands- into fists and marches over toward the bleachers. He doesn’t know what he plans to do, but he needs to do something. He thinks about finding something, or someone, to punch- but the idea of risking any more trouble is too much effort to bother. 

In the distance, he spies Lisa Braeden, looking distractingly gorgeous, sitting on the metal steps with a squad of girls surrounding her. A sense of calm soothes him, and a smirk overtakes the deep frown set in his lips as he starts strolling over in their direction.

He and Lisa used to hook up on-and-off for pretty much all of sophomore year. If they were at a party together or went out in a group, chances were that they’d end up making out in a broom closet before the evening was over. They never went all the way, but third base wasn't exactly unfamiliar territory for them. 

Dean had always been happy to see her. He knew just the right way to greet her, the right smile to throw in her direction, and a couple minutes later she'd be dragging him into some poor sucker's bedroom and undoing her bra. 

As he strides confidently across the parking lot, he's expecting much the same this time around. Not to be rude or anything, but Lisa is pretty much a guaranteed thing when it comes to Dean. A little ego boost would do him some good right now. 

“Hey, Lis,” he says coolly as he approaches the group. He winks at one of the other girls in the circle, who giggles like crazy and whispers to the girl beside her. 

Lisa barely spares a look over her shoulder. “Hey,” she mutters dismissively. 

The brush-off strikes Dean as odd. He almost backtracks but he just figures, maybe she’s on her period or something. Girls can be weird sometimes. He scoots over to be more in her field of vision and keeps at it. “How’s things?”

“They’re fine." 

Jeez, what is with this chick? Dean shifts uneasily between his feet and coughs into his elbow. _Alright, let's try this again._ “Uh, you wanna go talk in private or somethin’? I’m…”

“What would we have to talk about?”

There’s an edge to her voice, sharp now, and he starts to notice how wide the other girls’ eyes are. He coughs again, adjusts his jacket, and pulls up a knee so that he can lean forward on his elbow. The Lean is a patented Dean Winchester move, with a ninety-two percent success rate since being added to his repertoire sophomore year. 

“Well, you know… maybe we could go somewhere a little more intimate…”

She practically balks at that, which confuses Dean even more. When she manages to snap her jaw shut, she swivels around with a pointed finger and a look that starts as mocking and becomes something dangerously close to pity.  

“Sorry, Dean, but it’s not gonna happen. You’re not exactly my type.”

A cold panic clutches at Dean, but he’s too deep now to acknowledge it. “Not your type? What do y--”

“I don’t date omegas,” she says with a sense of finality, and turns her heads away from him again. The rest of her air-headed entourage stare at Dean, some of them keep giggling and the sounds turns into a weapon in his ears. 

His mouth hangs open, which is so much more embarrassing. She knows. Everyone knows. Everyone knows what he is and that means everything in his whole fucking life is gone. 

Lisa tosses her hair over her shoulder. Dean worries for a second that she’s going to say something else, or maybe that she’ll act as if he’s nothing other than thin air. He can’t decide which would be worse, so he gets the hell out of there before he can find out. 

Fuck. The whole team must know. The whole school. He thought he’d hidden it so well… 

It doesn’t even matter. Now everyone knows about him, and it feels like some final, morbid puzzle piece has been locked into place. In some part of him, he’d always been hoping that… that this was somehow some kind of fluke. Like, maybe sometimes alphas presented as something else first, cause their body was so full of testosterone it didn’t know what to do with it (in all his hours of internet research, though, he’s never yet found anything that even remotely spoke of something like that). 

He’s a god damn _omega_ , and now there’s no one that doesn’t know. What did he ever do in his life to deserve this? 

Dean’s been a good guy. He’s respectful to his parents and his teachers, he’s never cheated on a test, and he listens when girls tell him ‘no’. He’s worked hard for his whole life, first at school and then later on the field, and all he ever wanted was this one thing. This one, stupid thing. And he didn’t even know how badly he wanted it was out of his hands and in the rearview mirror.

Before he even notices he’s crossed the campus and is on his way out toward the main road. He casts a look back at the school and asks himself where he is going. 

He knows, in the way that things are starting to become clear for him a lot more lately, that he’ll never go back to that building again. Why would he? So he can keep failing his classes and do nothing while people he used to call friends all turn their backs on him? Wait for some riled-up alpha to corner him in a bathroom stall? 

Fuck it. He was never smart anyway. 

Home strikes him as an even worse prospect. At least the jerkoffs at school didn’t ever really matter to him. Sure, he liked being popular, and it was cool to score girls whenever he wanted. But it’s not the end of the world if those people don’t wanna talk to him. Thinking about the way Sammy turned his head away, ashamed, right before Dean had locked himself behind his bedroom door and rolled around on his bed trying not to stink like _heat_. It makes him feel sick. 

Homes are made of love. That’s what the cross-stitch thing says that Grandma Deanna made, the one that hangs over the toilet and makes Dean feel weird whenever it catches his eyes while he’s jacking off in the shower. If the people in his house can’t stand to be around him, then it’s probably not worth it to think of that place as 'home' anymore. 

He continues to walk down the street, the brush of wind that flies off the cars passing by the only keeping him in his head. At a certain point in his thinking, he has to ask himself… is there anything even holding him here anymore? What’s he got going for him in Lawrence that he can’t find anywhere else? 

A place on Charlie’s couch and about a thousand sets of eyes staring at him, judging him? 

No thanks, _amigo_.   

Who’ll miss him if he even goes? Charlie, he guesses, but he can call her and keep her updated. Dean thinks he can see himself being way happier than he is now, about two thousand miles away where no one knows his name. 

So he starts walking. And walking and walking. His mind is a mess and he doesn't pay attention to where he's going, but that's alright. Lawrence isn’t that big, it’s not as if he could get lost or turned around. 

As if to prove his point, the first time he picks his head up to get some air, he finds himself across the street from his regular coffee shop hangout. He putters around on the pavement for a minute, debating whether or not to go inside. Normally, the place is his one guaranteed haven from all the other shit in his life. The tattooed barista will flirt with him, even if she can smell the _omega_ radiating off his skin, and the pie there tastes better than the prepackaged crap from the grocery store. 

He scuffs his sneaker over the curb and frowns. It doesn’t feel the same way, lately. Every time he even looks at the place, he starts thinking about the time that guy had come up to him and basically started going all goo-goo over Dean.  

Dean rolls his eyes at himself. It’s stupid to pretend that he doesn’t remember his name. Of course he does. _Castiel_. You don’t forget a name that weird, and you especially don’t forget someone’s name when they claim to essentially be your star-crossed lover or some shit.   

Dean kicks his feet against the sidewalk and turns away. He doesn’t want to go in right now. He’d rather keep walking, anyway. Helps him to burn off energy that makes him feel less helpless about everything. He pulls his arms in tight around himself as he starts to walk, then thinks the better of it and straightens up his back and marches on with his chin held high and his jaw steeled. 

Helpless is not something that Dean likes feeling. If there’s one thing his old man had thought him from the time he was a pup, it was to always take care of yourself.

It sort of goes hand and hand with his new life though, so… that sucks.

The whole thing just has him filled with a total lack of hope. So, he’s helpless and hopeless. Fucking great. And it’s only going to get worse from here.

What exactly does the future hold for him as- he struggles not to roll his eyes even thinking the words- an omega? Best case scenario, he guesses, he finds some suppressants and a decent job, maybe one day down the line shacks up with a Beta who's halfway-alright. Worst case... Dean doesn't even wanna think about it, but it most likely involves some hot-headed Alpha thinkin' he can tell Dean what to do, makin' him stay at home and spend his days taking care of...  ugh... pups. 

Not that Dean minds the idea of pups, or even of his own litter. It's just the... physical aspect, that makes him feel all gross and squeamish. He has to suppress the urge to gag just at the thought.

It’s at this point in his rambling, mobile pity-party that he looks up and realizes that the light around him has started to fade, that a cold wind has picked up and is blowing down the street. He stands on a street corner and tries to look for something, anything that he might recognize.

He squints his eyes down the street at a string of letters on a white fluorescent sign. Lawrence Bus Depot. 

That’s just perfect, isn’t it? He wonders half-heartedly if it was some kind of subconscious thinking that led his feet here, or maybe it was fate. Dean doesn’t know if he believes in fate, though, and even if he had before it was unlikely that he would now.  

“Hey!”

A voice breaks through the silence and makes Dean turn around. A figure is walking toward him, speeding up now, and despite himself, Dean starts to wrap him arms tightly around himself and shrink. The shadow it creates is tall and broad. Dean hasn’t had a bad run-in with an alpha yet, but he’s seen enough daytime dramas to know that a he doesn’t want one. 

The figure walks into the light, though, and Dean relaxes somewhat. He knows this guy, they’re on the team together. Were _on the team together_ , Dean corrects himself with an internal wince. His name’s Michael, and he’s a senior, and normally he’s so intimidating that Dean wouldn’t even try to start a conversation with him. 

But here he is now walking right up to Dean. For some reason. Outside the bus depot. 

“You’re Winchester, right?” he asks in a friendly way, taking a few steps toward him casually, “JV running back?”

Dean coughs into his fist and drops his voice about an octave. “Yeah.” He’s surprised that Michael would know who he is… they’re rarely on the field together, and in the locker rooms the players tend to stay within their social circles, which is to say their own grade. 

And anyway… Michael is an alpha. He’s build like a brick house, could crush Dean’s puny frame in a second if he wanted. Dean’s always imagined he’d way to busy picking up chicks, listening to their adoring screams, pretty much swimming in a sea of horny omegas, to even notice who else was on the team with him half the time. 

He would swear he catches Michael scenting the air for a quarter of a second before he smiles at Dean, but he tells himself that he’s probably just being paranoid. He’s worried that he must reek of a lot of different things to a more trained nose. 

Michael looks him over. His lips are pursed, like he has more than question he wants to ask, but he’s holding back. Maybe he’s wondering why Dean is out wandering downtown at night with nothing more than a hoodie on. 

After a few seconds, he asks, “You need a ride or somethin’?” 

It comes out normally, teammate to teammate, and Dean slumps with relief. He’s sick of being talked to as an _omega_. Like he wanted to yell at Coach Singer, he’s still the same Dean. Everybody could just _ignore_ the other part, if only they tried. Dean certainly intends do.   

And speaking of what he intends to do...

“Ah…” Dean glances over at the bus station again, hesitating. It’s only a block away. Walking distance. The only thing separating him from freedom and anonymity is about a hundred feet, and Michael. 

If he was thinking of what was best for everyone, he’d already be in there buying a ticket. 

Michael’s voice cuts through his internal monologue again. “C’mon, my car is this way,” he says, with that kind of alpha confidence that Dean envies so much. He used to have that kind of confidence, when he was sure that he too would present as planned and everything would fall into place. 

Now he can’t do anything but shrug limply and follow along. “Okay. Thanks." 

So this is how it’s gonna be now. Being sheepishly herded around by people with deep voices and wide shoulders. What a life to look forward to. 

Dean kicks himself in the shin and tells himself to shut up. The guy’s just trying to be nice. Dean probably looks like a deer in the headlights, wandering around at night with no where to go and no plans for the night. 

Michael jogs across the street and motions for him to do the same. There’s a nervous sensation prickling along his skin, and he’s wondering if Michael knows. If he’d heard at school, or if he can tell now. 

Because he likes the idea of Michael treating him like normal. Not babying him or buttering him up. Just two guys who go to the same school, enjoy the same sport. Maybe they’ll take about girls on the drive. Maybe he’ll give him some pointers, pat his shoulder and tell him what a lady wants.  

Dean considers this with a genuine smile and he looks over at Michael. This time he’s sure he sees the taller boy pulling in a long inhale through his nose. His eyes flutter closed and it looks like a shiver goes down his spine. 

It makes Dean feel nervous to watch, but he tells himself to buck up, stop being a baby. “Where’d you say your car was-” 

A hand closes over Dean’s mouth. He tries to gasp in surprise, but he’s too distracted by the fact that he’s being shoved back against a brick wall- hard and jarring, and his head clunks against the side of the building with an awful thud. 

“So you’re an omega,” pants Michael in between deep inhales. His face is pressed into the crook of Dean’s neck, and it makes Dean feel so gross he wishes he would wiggle out of his grip. “Fresh, too. Bet you just presented, huh?”

The sound he makes after that is something more than a groan. It’s edging on a growl, and while it makes Dean feel terrified and sick, something is his body responds to it and he can't stop himself from keening into Michael's hand. He wants to tell this guy that he and his knot can go fuck off somewhere else, but the only thing that will come out is a weak, protesting whimper. 

“Oh, yeah,” Michael sounds terribly pleased by that. “You like that, don’t you? I bet you need a good, strong alpha to show you what to do." He laughs darkly and it is quite possibly the most terrifying thing Dean's ever heard. It sends a chill over his skin that pools into an anger deep in his stomach. 

Dean wants to fight. He wills his arms to find their strength and shove this guy off him before things get bad for real. He’s torn, though, by the stupid, stupid omega instincts in his body. Everything in his core is telling him to _submit obey let go_ , even while he mind is screaming.

Another laugh slides out from between Michael’s lips. “Couldn’t even wait for the car, you smell too fuckin’ sweet. It’s not a very good idea to be out by yourself at night. You know that, don’t you?”

Dean finally manages to at least force himself narrow his eyes and glare at this douche for all he's worth. This is not going to happen, it isn't. He just needs fucking man up and shove this guy off of him before... 

“Well, you’re gonna learn real quick.”

Dean closes his eyes tight and tries to focus himself. To center all of his strength in just one of his god damn hands so he can reach out and punch this asshole alpha in the face. The sound of a zipper being undone drives a cold spike into his blood. _Fuck, maybe this is happening,_ he thinks in a panic and curses his dumb fucking omega luck for the millionth time. And then, the next thing he knows, he’s been released. 

“What the fuck!”

Michael’s voice yells out in a curse just before the sound of a blow landing against bone. Dean’s eye flash open and what he sees before him is truly incomprehensible. 

“What the fuck,” he echoes in a whisper.

How did he get here? How did he know? How....

There's no time to process anything. His brain is in a haze, but the one thing he's sure of is that this is not a hallucination. This... for whatever reason... is really happening. 

 _Castiel_ is here and he's standing over Michael and he's seething at the mouth and his fist is cocked up in the air and... What? Dean needs to breathe. 

“I’d advise you to get about a hundred miles away from here as fast as possible,” he watches as Castiel's lips part into a sneer that looks nothing like the guys who approached him in the coffee shop not too long ago, “if you enjoy having your testicles attached to your body.”  

Michael looks for a second like he might do something about that, like he might step in and challenge the other alpha. Dean watches with his chest locked up and devoid of air, wishing that he wasn't stuck off on the sidelines. At the last minute, though, Michael's gaze jumps over to Dean and then back to Castiel, and he takes off running in the other direction. 

Dean thinks to himself- again- how he'll probably never understand what goes on between alphas in a situation like this. He should be thinking of a million other things, like how lucky he is that he managed to get out of being humped up against some grimy wall by a knothead like Michael... but he's not going to admit to himself how scared he really was just then. No way. He might have to live the rest of his life as an omega, but that doesn't mean he has to be weak. 

Castiel, meanwhile, leaps up with some inhuman, cat-like skill and it’s less than a second before he’s standing right in front of Dean. He lifts his hand like he’s going to touch Dean’s face, and it’s only when he steps back harshly out of his reach that Castiel’s eyes stop darting all over his body and settle in on his eyes. “Dean.” He’s breathless. “Are you okay? Did he hurt you?” 

The hand he had raised still lingers in the air. Dean slaps it out of his face and feels blood rise beneath his skin.

“So what?” He yells out, voice rough and full of fear and so many other things. “Now you’re fucking stalking me, or…?”

The dazed look in Castiel’s eyes begins to slowly settle into something more grounded. His pupils shrink as the alpha hormones recede. Dean is so annoyed at himself for knowing all this. 

“Let me explain.”

Dean doesn’t want him to explain. Dean doesn’t want him here. He’s just another reminder of this fucking thing, the thing he’s supposed to be that he isn’t, and the other thing that he is and doesn’t want to be. He doesn’t want him here to rescue him or to buy him pie or to come and in sweep him off his feet like some fucking princess. 

“I-- What the-- Why--” It’s hard to keep focus when your life is continually crumbling around you. “I don’t fucking know you. What… what gives you the right--”

Castiel sniffs the air, just like Michael had done before. Dean takes another step back and pulls into himself, still trying to collect all his anger into one place. He’s surprised when Castiel moves in, inches into his personal space. It’s a bold move. Dean doesn’tdo anything to stop him and he doesn't know why.  

“Dean. Please. Just come with me.”

Dean practically snorts. He might, if there was any room for it amidst all his rage. The last alpha that told him to 'come along' had been on track to whip his dick out and teach Dean a lesson about walking around in the dark. He's not about to make the same mistake again. He's no genius, but he's not that fuckin' dumb. 

Dean would literally love nothing more than to tell this guy, this goddamn _stranger_ , to quit being a creepy stalker and leave him the fuck alone. He thinks about it for a minute, his arms wrapped around himself as his eyes scan the man in front of him for danger. 

It's hard to focus. He wants to scoff and walk away, but… he’s rattled. And he can’t deny that right now, for some reason, Castiel’s presence is… soothing. It softens the sharp edges of everything he’s feeling inside his body right now. 

He really, really doesn’t want it to, but it does.

"Why should I?" he mutters sharply, instead of admitting to it. 

Castiel's face drops, maybe it's relief or maybe sadness, Dean doesn't know. He puts his hands into his pockets and it makes him shrink a little. Dean prefers him like that. "I... I'm not gonna let you get hurt. I mean, I can't stand the idea that you'd be in harm's way."

He could be lecturing Dean on how he should know better than to be out alone at this time of night, or that he shouldn't be so dumb to trust any guy who offers him a ride. He could be telling him that he needs to grow up and get used to how things are going to be here from here on out. Hell, he could press Dean up against that wall same as Michael did and find some way to make him feel real sorry for being such a mouthy brat around an alpha. 

But, he doesn't. He just looks at Dean, and the expression on his face is almost pleading. It's hard to find something worth distrusting there.  

So for the second time without knowing why, he decides to let himself be guided by this weird alpha librarian that he barely even knows. The one that says he's not like other alphas, though Dean isn't quite sure of that anymore after seeing the way that he decked Michael without a second thought and was practically foaming like a rabid dog. 

Dean turns back toward the street without saying anything and starts walking, his shoulders hunched up as he stomps along. When he doesn't hear any footsteps trailing behind him, he turns around and finds Castiel standing frozen in the same spot. Dean answers with a sudden, overemphasized shrug that's meant to ask, _are we going or not?_

Castiel takes the hint and starts jogging to catch up with Dean, who turns back around and keeps on his path. When Castiel falls into step beside him, he loosens his death grip on his hoodie, but still keeps a safe distance between the two of them. 

“I’m not gonna hurt you.”

He says it softly, like he's begging Dean to believe him. And maybe he is. It would be easy for Dean right now to be feeling very wary around any and all alphas. 

Dean gives him a sideways look and coughs out, “I know that.” And then, with a little more bitterness,“You’re just following me, apparently, and watching everything I do.”

“I’m not stalking you,” Castiel is quick to defend himself, “Or following you or anything weird like that. I was driving back to my place and I…” He glances sideways at Dean, as if he’s unsure he wants to admit the next part. “I just got this feeling. And then this smell hit me, and I knew it was you. And you smelled so terrified…"

“I don’t need you to come and save me,” Dean spits out, even though he knows it probably isn’t true. He doesn't like the idea of anyone being able to know when he's _terrified_ , whether or not it happens to be true. And even if he was, he's not going to admit it now. 

It's then that they arrive at a vehicle that, if it weren't Dean's saving grace right now, he would have no qualms about declaring a huge hunk of junk, and right to Castiel's face, too. Dean spent his life around cars, and he's seen some real beauts in his time. But he keeps his mouth shut as he climbs into the passenger seat of the crappy Mark V. He's just glad the guy didn't try and open his door for him. 

“I just want to know that you’re safe. It matters to me," Castiel says as he takes his place behind the steering wheel. He pauses for a moment, jostling the keys pensively before resting them on his lap as he asks,“Are you going home tonight?”

Dean crosses his arms over his chest and glares out the window. He wishes he hadn't told this dude that he doesn't like going home. Now he feels like he knows Dean, like they're in a place where they're sharing personal information between them, which they aren't. And even worse, it's just another way that he probably thinks he can rescue Dean. 

God, it makes him want to barf. 

“Will you come to my apartment? You can stay there for the night. Please? I… I would feel a lot better.”

How this guy feels, Dean wants to point out, is none of his beeswax.  But… well, it’s not like he has anywhere else to go. 

“Whatever,” he mumbles, slinking down further onto the aging leather of the interior, “Fine." He stays silent for the rest of the ride and keeps his eyes fixed out the window, but he doesn't miss the smile reflected on the glass as Castiel slips his keys into the ignition and starts the engine. 

The last time Dean had been at the apartment, he’d only stayed for maybe half an hour before he’d skedaddled off on his way to Charlie’s. He’d seen the living room and the kitchen, and he remembered thinking that it was a pretty nice place, especially for someone who just worked at the university. Not that he’d said that out loud or anything.

This time is much the same. He wanders into the hallway after Castiel unlocks the door and waves him in, eyes a bit more discerning this time around. There's no photos on the wall, not much in the way of decoration at all. Could come off with some serial killer vibes, but Dean has a gut feeling that he's okay here. Probably. 

He walks into the living room for a second time and this time his eyes go right to the tall bookshelf that dominates an entire corner of the room. It's pretty much the only real piece of furniture that you can't sit on, which Dean figures has to mean something about Castiel. He scans the jackets of several books, just making sure there isn't one hiding in there called _How to Cook and Eat Human Flesh for Dummies_. But it's mostly just a bunch of boring, nerdy history books. Figures. 

Next to the bookshelf is a simple wooden door, slightly cracked, and Dean takes the liberty to go ahead and push it open. He looks inside and frowns, a sudden bad feeling overtaking him again. 

“Uh, there’s only one bedroom?”

Obviously, he would already know that, since it's his place and all. But Dean says it out loud anyway, and he says it very suspiciously, because he doesn't want this guy to think that just because Dean needs a place to stay means he's going to get cuddly or whatever. If that's part of the deal, then he can just forget it. Dean'll take his shit right now and head back out into the-

“I’ll take the couch.”

Dean breathes a sigh of relief, but it's followed immediately by a roll of the eyes. “I can sleep on the couch, I’m not-”

“Dean," Castiel interrupts, "Please.” 

_ Alphas are so weird.  _

“Okay.” 

Whatever. No skin off his nose if this dude insists on being weird and chivalrous and uncomfortable on a couch in his own home. God knows Dean doesn't mind having a bed. Not that he doesn't have one of his own, but... every time he looks at it, he thinks of that heat. Of the way his dad looked at him, the way his mom avoided him. The smell sticks to the sheets and he's tried washing it, but it still makes his cheeks burn and his skin itch every time he crawls underneath the blankets. 

Just another reason not to go back, he tells himself remorsefully. 

"Are you sure you're feeling alright?" Castiel's gruff voice breaks through Dean's thoughts. He looks up and finds that Castiel is standing not too far away from him, eyes wide and shining with concern. He swallows and lowers his backpack off of his shoulder. "It's okay if you feel scared or... violated, even. If you knew him, if he was a friend."

Dean tries not to roll his eyes as hard as he initially wants to. "I'm _fine_ , really. Don't waste your energy fawning over me. I'm a big boy."

He thinks that maybe calling himself a 'big boy' only serves to make him sound more childish, but whatever. He doesn't care. He just wants to make sure that he's setting a clear line here, and on that line is a big sign printed with bold, black letters that read _I DON'T NEED YOUR HELP_. 

Castiel is watching him with lips pursed, like he's thinking about pressing the issue. If he does, Dean is sure he's going to scream. 

"Alright," is all he says, though. The word is heavy, weighted, and it means more than it voices. But Dean's glad he doesn't have to keep talking about this, at least. "I'll let you get some rest, then. I'm sure you need it. If you need anything, I'm just out here." He tosses a hand towards the couch, which looks old and too small for him.

Dean nods silently and tries not to linger too long before going into the bedroom and closing the door behind him. Just before the metallic bolt clicks into place, he hears a faint, "Goodnight, Dean" coming through the wall. He stands still, his hand resting on the door handle while his feet stay frozen in place. Then he turns away with a shake of the head and nothing more. 

He practically dives for the bed. It's been a long ass day, arguably one of the worst in his life. He'll be happy just to forget it ever happened just as soon as he falls asleep. Tomorrow, he'll think about the bus station again. He'll get a ride there, this time- he's not a total idiot- but he'll think about going there and buying a ticket for wherever seems like a good idea. Maybe somewhere on the West Coast, or deep in the Rockies...

As he buries his head into the softness of a pillow, he inhales deeply against the smooth, cottony material. He finds a scent there and it's so good he wants to wrap himself up in it completely, like a cocoon or a blanket on a cold winter's day. It produces something in him, a kind of calm he's not sure he's ever been able to achieve so naturally before, and right now it's all he can do now to roll around in it like a puppy. 

Somewhere, in a more conscious, more discerning part of his brain, Dean knows what that means. But for now he's happy to ignore it, and to pretend that it's just the easy comfort of a safe place to sleep that has him closing his eyes and lulled off before he even has the time to realize it. 

 

 

When he wakes up in the morning, Dean has to blink few times before it all comes back to him. He remembers each part of the previous evening with an additional stomach drop, and he stares at the bedroom door with a mixture of gratitude and dread. No use wasting time, though. He forces himself out of bed, despite the sensation of being called back into the sheets, and makes his way out into the rest of the apartment. 

"Good morning," Castiel greets from behind the kitchen counter. He's got a big, goofy grin, and everything about him looks soft and happy. There's something about it, something weirdly... _domestic_ , that makes Dean at once pity the poor guy and also want to get the hell out of there ASAP. 

He answers with a grunt in an effort to seem discouraging. 

"Do you want something to eat? Tea, coffee?"

Is this another alpha thing, or is he just being nice? Dean can't tell, and it's frustrating the hell out of him. If it is some alpha trait, something about dominance or keeping him in his place, then he wants to outright refuse every thing this guy offers him. Fuck politeness. But also, he _will_ have to eat at some point eventually.

"I'll take some cereal," he replies warily, figuring that it's at least the easiest thing to make, so it's like a kind of middle ground. At the least, he's not letting this guy make him a pancake feast- which, judging from the way he looks at Dean most of the time, it seems like something he'd definitely do if asked. "Don't you have to be at work or something?"

"I do, but I'm running a little late this morning." It sounds like there's more to that, so Dean raises his eyebrows curiously as he pours the grains loudly into his bowl. Castiel shifts in his chair and moves his eyes away from Dean, focusing his attention on one of the buttons on his shirt. "I didn't want to leave you to wake up alone."

"Man, I told you--"

"I know, I know. You don't need protecting, you don't want it. I just..."

Dean puts the cereal box down on the counter, a little harder than necessary. The air in the kitchen has got so much shit floating around in it, between him and this weird sensitive alpha, and it's all so confusing because _they don't even know each other_ and it's making him feel so frustrated he could burst. 

Is this what being an omega is like? he wonders. Just constantly confused and over whelmed by all your stupid feelings 'til you die? _Kill me now._  

Dean turns his back to Castiel as he goes into the fridge in search of milk. “Listen, I know I already asked this, but… I just don’t get it. Why are you…. why do you care?” He leaves off the end of the thought, which is that no one else does.

He swivels around once more to find Castiel with a sort of _you caught me_ look about him. "Would you believe that I'm just an incredible charitable person?"

"Maybe if you didn't smell me so much I would," mutters Dean. He says it mostly to himself, in a low voice, but he's not kidding. Still, it gets a smile out of Castiel for some reason. A shy, kind of embarrassed, smile. 

“Can you blame me for being a little excited?” he asks and Dean can't help but to notice that his very white skin has gone pink at the cheeks. “Male omegas are rare, you know, and I’m gay. I thought I’d be alone forever.”

Dean grimaces. It's a lot easier when he's trying to hate this guy for being a creep or a stalker. He doesn't wanna have to feel _bad_ for him. He's way too busy feeling bad for himself. 

“But I’m... not... gay,” he forces out the words, not letting himself look at the man sitting across from him, “and even if I was, I don’t want a mate. At least, not an Alpha.”

It's better that they get it all out in the open now. Dean's not planning on changing his mind about either of those things any time soon, so it's better that this guy doesn't go and get his hopes up. If he thinks he's gonna wear Dean down or somehow change him, he's got it all wrong. He's better off letting go now and maybe going to try one of the other male omegas he'd be lucky to find.

Dean expects to see nothing less than heartbreak when he finally raises his eyes. But he doesn't. Instead he sees Castiel looking at him with clear eyes and a tilted head. 

“I know that," he says in a quiet voice, "But, if you don't mind, I'm gonna keep holding out hope.”

Hope for what, Dean doesn't want to ask. 

“No matter what, it still makes me feel good to take care of you. I know you probably don’t quite understand this yet, but it’s like… my mission.”

Castiel’s words make Dean’s stomach twist in a weird way. Not only because it makes him sound small and precious, like a little kid, but also because he wonders: if his ‘mission’ is to take care of Dean, then is Dean’s… to be taken care of?

The idea makes him want to vomit. His whole point in life is to let someone else handle everything for him? To shut up and smile and- ugh, God- pop out pups like some kind of mindless baby factory? 

Castiel must be able to see it on Dean’s face. His own forms into a deflated half-smile and he stands up from his chair.  “I’d better be heading to the library now. Unless you need me to-”

“No,” Dean tells him harshly. “I mean, I’ll be okay.”

A quick look flashes over Castiel's face, but it's gone before he has the time to read into it. “Alright. You can help yourself to anything you want, of course. And I left my number for you, if you need anything or have any questions."

Dean looks down at the note. He takes notice of the delicate, sweeping curves of the lettering. It’s unlike any alpha’s handwriting that he’s ever seen.

Then he raises his eyeline just slightly and catches the way Castiel’s feet are fidgeting while glued to the same spot.  He might not be able to smell much yet, but he doesn't need a hyper-sensitive nose to read what Castiel's putting out loud and clear. He's lingering. He doesn’t want to leave Dean. Which, for whatever reason, Dean happens to find begrudgingly.... sweet. Maybe his head's a little off-kilter from last night. Or his standards are just low in terms of alpha behavior right now. 

In any case, Dean says something then that surprises even him. “Thanks. For everything, I mean.”

Castiel watches him for a minute, his lips set into a flat line. Dean looks at them and notices how they're the exact shade of pink to match a rosebush his mom keeps in their front garden. He tears his eyes away as quick as he can, telling himself to get a freaking grip. 

“It’s no problem, Dean,” he declares finally, though Dean can't determine the feelings behind it. Another several long seconds tick by on the clock before Castiel reaches down for his own backpack and heads for the door. “Alright. Goodbye.”

The minute the door closes, Dean is unable to hold back the wave of nausea that hits him like a damn Mack truck. He runs in the bathroom faster than he's ever ran before and unloads all his conflicting, anxious feelings into the toilet bowl. 


	3. Chapter 3

“I’m leaving.”

Dean announces it out of the blue one day, in the kitchen, after he’s been staying with Castiel for about a month. They’re sitting across the island counter from one another, Castiel drinking his morning herbal tea and Dean wolfing down his fourth piece of toast.

Cas pauses in the tea-drinking to allow his mouth to drop open. “Leaving for where?” he asks in a hoarse voice. 

The sound makes Dean want to wince. It makes him feel bad, in that way that Castiel does a lot, unintentionally. Dean can’t stop disappointing him, can’t stop breaking his heart by bits and pieces at every turn. He cares about this a lot more than he did a couple of weeks ago. 

Because the thing is, Cas is a good guy. He hadn’t been kidding when he told Dean he wasn’t your typical alpha: he’s definitely a breed of his own. He’s quiet and kind of funny in a weird way, and he’d rather spend an evening curled up on the couch with the biography of some old sea captain or something. And he drinks herbal tea. Dean’s only ever seen alphas drinking anything but black coffee and whiskey neat, and other things that hurt going down your gullet. 

Those are the kind of things Dean drinks now, because he’d spent so long preparing himself to be an alpha, that he doesn’t know anymore which things he likes and which things he’d just always thought he would. 

But Cas drinks tea. 

And also, he never pulls rank with Dean. Even though he could, because Dean’s sixteen and an omega and he’s staying here in Castiel’s apartment only because the guy was nice enough to let him.

There are things all the time that Dean can’t believe he isn’t getting yelled at for. His dad, for sure, would have smacked him in the head and told him not to go getting a smart mouth. 

But Cas never puts Dean in his place. Hell, there was a night last week when Dean straight up _yelled_ at him. It was about something stupid, whatever they were watching on TV, and Dean knew he was being petulant and stupid. The second he closed his mouth, he got all kinds of nervous that Cas would kick him out or stand up and bare his teeth, warn him not to ever talk to him like that again. 

But Castiel had just handed over the remote silently, and watched Dean with a funny little smile. It was a take on that same look he always give Dean, his eyes are always the same, narrow and amused and shining with interest.

“Honestly, anywhere but here,” Dean answers in the present, after gulping down a glass of orange juice. Cas buys the all-natural stuff with the pulp in it, which Dean used to think tasted funky, but he’s getting used to it. “I’m thinking West Coast. I wouldn’t mind living by the beach.”

Castiel’s eyebrows gather into a confused bunch at the middle of his forehead. “Is this an April Fool’s joke?”

“Is it April Fool’s Day?” Dean asks with a frown. He’s kind of lost track of the days since he stopped going to school. Actually, since he stopped going out into the world at all, really. Lawrence is too small and he’s too nervous to run into someone he knows. Someone who knows about him. 

“No, it was last week. I thought it might be belated.”

Dean scoffs. A typical weird Castiel response. He slams down his glass and goes to refill it. 

“Well, I’m serious as a heart attack,” he says, “I’m not in school, I’m not talking to my family. I can’t think of a single reason for me to stay here.” 

Castiel’s eyes somehow seem to turn extra blue when they go sad. Dean doesn’t know how that would happen, but he’s noticed it a few times since he’s been crashing at Cas’.Then he immediately asks himself why the heck he would notice something like that, and tries to push thoughts like that way, way far away where they belong. 

This time, they don’t stay sad for long. They turn hard, steel themselves, and Castiel places his mug onto the counter with determination. “Then I’m coming with you.”

Dean’s first response is to laugh, because that’s a crazy idea. But it’s hard to laugh when it also makes his stomach twist in a way and his throat clench up. 

“That’s…” he starts, but doesn’t know where to go. 

Cas is peering across the counter at him skeptically, and Dean takes a step backward. “What is your plan, exactly?" he asks, but without sounding demanding, "You take a bus, by yourself, to a place where you don’t know anyone, with no place to stay, no money to your name, no job opportunities and no high school diploma?”

Dean’s eyes drop to the ground in shame. No, not shame, but… like a little kid who’s been caught in a lie or something. Maybe it's not the most well mapped out plan in the world. But what else can Dean do? Rot away in this place indefinitely? Or go slinking back home with his tail between his legs, and who knows what kind of shit was waiting for him there. 

There's been a creeping dread lately, a thought that scrapes at the back of his mind, wondering if his dad wouldn't have just shipped him off to live with the first good ( _"good"_ ) alpha he found. He can't be sure that it's true, but it doesn't seem like something his dad _wouldn't_ think of. Just to have Dean out of sight, out of mind. In a way, it's kind of what Dean has gone and done anyways... but at least this way, he gets to have a say in it. 

And, all things considered, Cas isn't the worst Alpha Dean could have ended up next to. 

Here and now, one week after April Fool’s Day, Castiel is, as usual, not going to listen to Dean’s bullshit. “Dean, if you’re going, then I have to go. I... I _have_ to. That’s just it.”

Dean turns towards him and squints his eyes. Cas has been mostly good about not pushing the whole… you know. _Mates_ , thing. Dean’s glad for that. But it sounds like here he's going back to that old idea, the one about his 'mission' and protecting and the freaking smell thing. 

“What about your job, though?" Dean tries to deflect. He throws a look around the apartment, taking in the bareness of the walls once more. "And this place? You’re an… adult, you can’t just take off...”

“I can if I want to.”

Now it's Cas who sounds petulant for once, stubborn and unwilling to listen. It's so surprising that it rips the words out of Dean's mouth, leaves him without anything to say. 

And what would he say? He doesn't technically have a good reason that Castiel shouldn't follow him, other than his gut reaction. Other than the fact that his brain is screaming at him that wasn't supposed to be long-term and he doesn't want an Alpha and it would be real, real dangerous to let himself get any further entwined with this near-stranger than he already is.  

“I have somewhere to stay in California.” 

That makes Dean jerk his head up in surprise and yell out, “What? You do?”

Cas toys with the string of his tea bag and nods. “And I also have a car, and whether or not your find it aesthetically pleasing, it’s more than capable of getting you from here to there safely, much more so than a bus.” He looks like he's thinking of saying something else.“Dean, I hope you know by now that I’m not going to force you into anything. You’re free to do what you want, obviously. But for me, I can either stay here and go crazy worrying that you’re off getting yourself into trouble-”

Dean resents the idea of him ‘getting himself into trouble’. As an omega, he’s finding, trouble’s more than likely going to come to you no matter what you do. 

“-or I can just come with you and breathe easy.”

A long breath of air leaves Dean in a slow huff as he feels his shoulders slumping. Just like everything else in his new life, he can feel that this isn't worth fighting against. He sucks in another breath, steeling himself for the disappointment of giving in to another alpha decision. 

But then Castiel speaks. And his voice is... kind of sad. “You know, I don't have anything going for me here, either." Dean's ears perks up at that, but he doesn't raise his head. Just listens. "I don't... I don't really have anyone, or anything here. I could use a change of scenery, too. And I don’t want to end up with some boring life in Lawrence, Kansas, either.”

Dean picks up his head and pauses at that. Sometimes Cas says things like that, things that don’t really fit in with the idea that Dean has of him. He thinks of the lack of photos in the apartment, the way Cas' phone never rings. He hadn't considered before, but he guesses that must mean something. It makes him feel sad for Cas. 

In a distant way, though. Not like a friend.   

It’s also weird, because Dean’s not sure that a boring life is Lawrence, Kansas is the worst thing in the world. He pictures himself back in his old life, where his mom hugs him goodbye in the morning, and his dad slaps his hand across his back and looks at Dean like he’s proud. Where he struggles through school during the week, but it’s okay because on the the weekends there’s games and after parties and sometimes he just stays home and goofs around with Sammy, which he used to pretend was boring but he really regrets that now.

He’s kind of surprised to hear that that isn’t what Castiel is looking for. It makes Dean realize that maybe he actually doesn’t really know what Cas wants out of life. Other than Dean, that is. 

“Alright, alright," he mumbles after a minute, “You don’t have to keep convincing me. I’ll… go with you.” 

God, that sounds cheesy. Like a bad line from a chick flick. But it doesn't feel like as much of a concession as he'd thought it would. 

Castiel resumes drinking his tea. “I think _I’m_ coming with _you,_ ” he replies with a tiny little smile peeking out from behind his mug. 

Another thing that strikes Dean as decidedly non-typical of an alpha. You'd think he'd wanted to take credit for the idea, to make it seem as if he made the decision and he was pulling Dean along like an obedient little side kick. But Cas doesn't care. 

That idea alone makes Dean feels a little better about the idea of Castiel following him halfway across the country. But just a little. It’s still overall pretty fucked to give up your whole life just to drive some dumb teenager out to California. Dean sure as hell wouldn’t do it if the situation were reversed.

But Castiel looks pretty unbothered by his decision. And even if he was, that's not Dean's fault. He didn't ask this from him, and he wouldn't ask it. In  fact, Dean knew that the less he accepted from this Alpha, the easier it would make things down the line.  

 

Two days later, Dean is tossing the last of Cas' bags into the backseat of his car, and he feels nothing but calm. He's ready. He's more ready than he's been for anything since... well, since he presented. 

“Where’s this place we’re going to, exactly?” he asks as he leans over the beige frame of the car. 

Cas hesitates for a minute. Then, after a long moment where all Dean can hear is the sound of the wings of birds flapping by above head, the answer comes. “Palo Alto, California.”

“Palo Alto.” Dean repeats it out loud once, and then again. He likes the way it sounds rolling off of his tongue. It sounds like the latin name you see next to plants at the garden store. It’s probably spanish, though. (Not that he’d know. Two semesters with Señora Gamble and he can still barely get out _me llama Dean_.) 

Cas doesn’t say anything to that. Just keeps looking over the bags in the backseat, even though he’s already checked them about four hundred times each. Dean’s never seen an alpha so anal about things before. He’s pretty sure that’s his job as an omega (in more ways than one - _ew_ ) but he’s happy to let Cas handle the worrying and the organizing while he naps in the passenger seat and occasionally stick his head out the window for some air like a happy, scruffy dog. 

Happy. Huh. That’s not a word Dean would have thought of to describe himself. Must be the excitement of change that’s got him smiling for once- the thought of being somewhere that no one knows him. Getting to remake himself as he was before, or as a totally new person.

“And who lives-”

The car door slams loudly and suddenly Castiel is climbing into the driver’s seat with a look of absolutely determination set on his features. “Alright, time is wasting. Let’s hit the road. Are you ready, Dean? Do you want a snack? Need to use the bathroom?”

Ugh, again with the overbearing. 

“Let’s just get the hell out of here,” Dean huffs out as he slides into the passenger seat. Cas is right, at least is one sense: any more time spent here is time wasted. 

So, they're off.  They don’t talk at first, which is fine by Dean. More than fine. He was actually sort of worried that Castiel would take the opportunity of two whole days stuck in a confined space together for some quality “bonding” time. They may be on more friendly terms now, but Dean still doesn't trust Cas enough to believe that he won't spend the next forty-eight hours trying to convince Dean to come over to the dark side and submit to being his perfect little omega. 

But luckily, silence persists over the car for the first few hours. Dean, for one, is happy to just stare out the window and take in the views that whiz by them. He's never really left Lawrence before; his parents were born here, and so were there parents. No one ever had a reason to go anywhere. 

For right now, it's a lot of corn. And beyond that, a whole lot of flat. But, Dean's hoping for mountains soon. He's always wanted to see mountains. 

“How far does it say we have to go?”

Dean straightens up at Cas' questioning voice. He'd been zoning out there for a while, his mind drifting as all the corn stalks melted into one in front of his eyes. He leans over to take a look at the GPS app that's displayed on Castiel's phone where it sits in the cup holder. 

“Six hours, thirty-nine minutes.” He double takes. “It’s that close to get to California?”

“No," Cas says, eyes flicking from the road momentarily, "It’s approximately twenty-eight hours in total driving, so I’ve divided it into shifts. Tonight we’re stopping in Denver and then tomorrow night just outside of Salt Lake City.” 

Dean wants to grumble that it would have been nice to know that, but he has to concede that it's actually a pretty good plan. And it would necessarily be fair of him to ask Cas to drive all the way through, especially since he is going to be the one doing all the driving- despite the fact that Dean had offered. Sure, he doesn’t technically ‘have a license’, but he didn’t know Cas was gonna be such a stickler for the law and stuff like that. Leave it to a nerd like him to love law and order. 

Dean does grumble anyways, though. Just for something to do. 

Another half an hour goes by without any kind of talking, and it starts to feel weird. Castiel isn’t even looking over at him at all, and he’s always looking at Dean. Always with the big, blue eyes and the long eyelashes and the pouty lips. 

So, surprise of all surprises, it’s Dean who opens up the door to conversation. “You got any music in this trash heap?” 

Castiel sits up so suddenly, it’s like he’d forgotten there was someone else in the car with him. He looks over at Dean and melts, going all gooey and limp when he points to the console and says, “There’s the radio.”

Just another reason they he feels certain that Fate got it all screwed up, that they could never survive with each other: guy doesn’t even have a tape collection. Not even CDs. 

Makes Dean wish he’d taken the time to swing by his place and grab some of the more important shit before they’d left town. As it was, he only went by once to stuff a bag full of clothes and tear a couple pictures off the wall to take with him. He'd had to sneak in one afternoon, when he knew the place would be empty. He had to crack open a window and hope none of the neighbors called the cops. It made him feel like a criminal, in the same damn house he'd grown up in. 

But he'd gotten what he needed, and now he never has to go back. Not until he wants to. 

It’s like dragging his heart over a barbecue to look at them, the pictures. But he figures that he'll probably want them someday. Maybe then, it will be easier. 

A tapping sound starts up from the drivers' side of the car, and Dean peeks over to find Castiel drumming his fingers along to rhythm of the song coming in over the radio. It's a Queen song, a classic. Everyone must know it, but still Dean feels a begrudging sense of contentment to see Cas acting like a normal human of his age. 

Dean turns away again with a sigh. Anyways. Back to the corn. 

They drive on for a while more, and Dean tries to clear his mind, tries to distract himself as hard as he possibly can. But he can't stop thinking about those pictures. They're all scratched into his brain, permanently. Him and Sammy dressed up at firefighters for Halloween. Them and Mom on the first day of school. The way dad smiled when he was teaching Dean how to throw a ball. 

In an effort to avoid emotional self-flagellation, Dean tries once again to get a little repartee going. 

“So where’s your family at?” He says to Cas in a light, conversational tone. "You got siblings?"

At first, he thinks maybe Castiel didn't hear him, because he takes so long to answer. Or, not answer. He just keeps on driving, steering them down the long highway road. Dean opens his mouth to repeat himself, when suddenly Castiel responds, albeit without looking away from the road.  “Are you sure you didn’t want a snack? I brought granola bars, or chips if you-”

“Cas.” Dean reflects on it, and he doesn’t remember when he became so comfortable as to start using monosyllabic nicknames. 

“Dean,” Castiel breathes his name in a sigh, and the sound makes a pleasant warmth settle in at the base of his spine, “if you want to talk, I am happy to talk to you about anything under the sun. There’s just one thing that’s off the table, and that’s my family. I don’t talk _to_ them, and I certainly don’t talk about them.”

It's not the first time that Cas has ever used his Alpha voice when talking to Dean, but it's one of the few. And every time, Dean hates it. It makes him feel like he's getting yelled at by a teacher or something. And even worse, it makes the Omega part of him- the one that lives in the back of his brain and won't ever shut up, even when he tells it to- want to bow his head and say _sorry Alpha_ and no way is Dean ever ever ever going any shit like this. 

“Is there anything else you’d like to ask me about? Feel free, please.”

Dean shrugs his shoulders and turns back to the window. He's feeling real ticked off now. But fat chance if he's gonna explain why to Castiel. 

“Can you pull off at the next rest stop? I gotta take a leak.”

Castiel looks over at him, stricken with disappointment (again) but nods, and twenty minutes later they’re parked between tour busses at a highway rest stop and they both get out of the car without looking at the other.

And that’s pretty much how day one passes. They stop in a motel for the night, and Dean’s more than relieved to hear the words “twin double” come out of Castiel’s mouth, but when he flops down onto the tough, boxy mattress, relief isn’t at all what he feels.

Sleep evades him pretty much the whole night, which leaves him feeling more agitated that usual in the morning. There's no breakfast in the motel so they stop on the road, and Cas literally forces Dean to eat an apple in between his pastries, which makes him grind his teeth in annoyance. But he also orders Dean's coffee just how he likes, so he finds it in himself to be forgiving this morning.

It occurs to Dean that this whole thing is sort of like a bastardized version of a buddy movie. Road trips are the kind of thing people do when they know each other really well, he thinks. So they can rock out to the songs that bring them back and spend hours laughter about times they embarrassed each other. He and Castiel don't have the kind of history- or anything like it at present- so that accounts for a lot of the long expanses without either of them speaking, Dean thinks. 

He always wanted to take one with Sammy: a trip like this. To hit the open road, nothing but their dad's Impala to accompany them as they coasted down the open road. They could go wherever, or everywhere, it wouldn't matter to Dean. 

Thinking about Sam both makes Dean's stomach drop out and makes him smile. He wonder if the kid misses him, or if he ever will. He wonders if he's angry at Dean for leaving. If he's scared, wondering where his big brother has gone. 

Maybe he ought to let him know. Have Charlie find him and tell him. _Shit_ , he hasn't even told Charlie that he's gone. How did he forget to do that- he's got one friend left in the whole world and he forgot to tell her goodbye? Jesus Christ what a piece of shit excuse for a friend he is.

"What are you thinking?"

He looks up and meets Cas' eyes in the rearview mirror. They're wide and round and extra-blue, which combined together means that he's concerned. Dean doesn't need him to be, so he just tugs at his sleeve and mutters, "It's nothing." But Cas keeps staring at him, and it starts to make Dean feel hot behind the ears, so adds, "I guess... this was all just, kind of fast I guess."

Cas' brows furrow together over his eyes, like he doesn't understand what Dean is saying. Which makes sense, maybe he doesn't. It was Dean, after all, who announced out of the blue that he wanted to relocate to the other side of the country and who insisted that they makes moves ASAP. He's probably talking nonsense. 

"Nevermind," he mutters quickly, tugging down on the sleeve of his plaid over shirt, "Just forget it."

He can just barely catch the way Cas tugs at his lips with his teeth, but it makes him feel weird all the same so he turns his eyes away so he doesn't have to see it any more. 

It only takes a pause of maybe thirty seconds before Castiel speaks up again. 

"Are you thinking of going back to school when we get out there?"

Dean's only response is a snort, so he guesses that Cas can figure out how he feels about that. But still, he feels unable to stop himself from saying, "Not unless I can get my hands on some sup-" and then he stops himself.

But not before the sensation of being an _absolute fucking idiot_ smacks him in the face like an unwelcome hand. 

Because, why? Why would he say that? Why would he say that when he's trapped in a car with a freaking Alpha who has probably only ever got one thing on his mind lately, if they're being honest- certain images swirling around his brain, burned into his eyes with awful, sweaty certainty. 

There’s one thing that’s sitting between them and now it's unavoidable, and remembering it makes Dean want to open the passenger's side door and roll out onto the asphalt at seventy miles per hour.

Dean’s heat. It wasn't his fault, obviously, and it's not like he has any say over when or how it comes rearing its stupid fucking head around. And how was he supposed to know that it would come only days after he find wound up staying at Castiel's place?  He wasn't even supposed to _be_ there for more then a day or two. 

But he was, and he’d been so close to managing to convince Cas to do some sort of couch-bed rotation,because there was no reason that he should kick the guy out of his own bedroom just because he had nowhere else to go. He might be a creep, and a little too intense, but Dean didn't want to go giving anyone back problems. He’d spent the better part of the last half-year on couches and he was certainly willing to stick with it now. 

And then he woke up one morning and _fuck_ the bed was soaked. It wasn’t anything like the last time, this one was full-on and he knew right away from the way his skin prickled and turned red. And, if his brain were working at even ten percent of its normal function, there would have been some kind of alarm going off, saying _ding ding alpha presence,_ but apparently his dumb stupid omega brain was much too clouded with desperate sex hormones for him to remember that. 

He heard a faint sound, somewhere in the distance, his name being called. And then a deep growl, fingers scratching at the door, and then he was way too busy with his fist on his cock to pay attention to anything else. 

When the door creaked open, he spared a glance in its direction. He saw dark hair and lights eyes and it was like somebody had hit the light switch inside his head. He suddenly remembered who he was and where he was and who he was with-

“You gotta go,” he admonished, trying for it not to sound like a moan even though he couldn’t stop the rapid motion of his hand stroking over the skin of his dick, “Get the fuck out, Castiel.”

It certainly wasn’t his place to say it. Not his apartment, not his bed- damn, the guy wasn’t even his friend. But he knew how alphas worked. If he caught of a whiff of Dean like this- that is, compared to how he’d been reacting to Dean’s normal, every day scent- he’d be ripping off his pants and pouncing on Dean within seconds, regardless of Dean’s pleas for him to stop (if that's even what Dean would ask for, at that point). 

“I’m not here to try anything, I promise.”

The strange sound of his voice made Dean halt his ministrations of self-abuse and jerk his head over his shoulder. When he saw it, his eyes almost bugged out of his head, and he would have laughed if he’d remembered how to. 

Castiel’s face was covered with the strangest contraption Dean had ever seen. Some sort of homemade scent-blocker. He had two ear plugs shoved up his noise and a line of scotch tape holding it into place. He was still licking his lips, surely that couldn’t be helped. But he was trying, god damnit.

“I... just wanted to make sure you have everything you need,” he went on to explain, voiceall nasally and obviously physically trying to restrain himself. “Is this your first heat?”

Should he be embarrassed? Dean couldn’t remember. Probably, since Cas sounds all clinical, like a doctor (and since he reeks so much that the poor dude has to plug up his nose like he’s got his period or something). But he answered with a fervent nod while he tried to keep his hand from creeping back down to his crotch. 

Cas nodded in kind and kept his eyes trained on the ceiling. “You need liquids. You- You’re going to be dehydrated... I’ll leave you some bottles inside the door here. Do you need me to buy you a toy?”

“ _Fuck_ no,” Dean answered in an angry hurl. He wasn’t about to knot himself like some kind of… some kind of… cock hungry omega slut. 

He turned away after that, even though he felt Cas’ presence behind him in the room for some moments after. He didn’t care, couldn’t find him in it too. 

Luckily, after his first orgasm, the burning underneath his skin cooled somewhat, and he was able to process his surrounding with a somewhat clearer head. He gulped down the juice Cas had left for him, and thought about going to take a shower, but honestly felt too scared to do it. Normally, he'd never cop to any kind of crap like that- but since it was only to himself, and he was definitely in what he would call a weakened state, he decided a little honesty was the best policy. 

Four days, he was holed up in that bedroom. He only snuck out occasionally to bolt to the bathroom, and then back into his cave for self-imposed hibernation. Cas took care of everything else for him: left water and juice outside his door, made him food- simple things, like PB&Js- to keep him up and running. Dean could begrudgingly admit that he wasn't really sure how he would have made it through without the guy. 

So when he was finally sure that he was all clear, he emerged from what was essentially a sex dungeon (well, for one) and stepped into the living room to breathe in a deep breath of fresh air. Then, he looked around for Castiel so he could thank him for his help before he got too embarrassed. But he wasn't anywhere in the apartment. 

Dean hummed and frowned, wondering where he'd be. He also wondered what day it was. God, those hormones had really clogged shit up in his brain, that was for sure. He did _not_ look forward to doing that every couple of months for the rest of his life. 

Figuring Castiel was probably at work or something, Dean took a seat on the sofa and thought about maybe catching up on some TV. But before he could even reach for the remote, a scent hit his nose that had him bending down and sniffing at the cushions before he knew what he was doing. There was something there, familiar, but not quite... right. 

The sound of keys turning in the lock made him bolt upright. A few seconds later, Cas walked into the living room carrying two paper sacs and an easy-going smile. 

"Hey," he called, in a way that made it seem like this was some old routine they had, "you're feeling better."

Dean answered, "Yeah," distractedly, because something had made his ears perk up the second Cas stepped into the apartment, and instinctively he hopped to his feet and approached. He scented the air around Cas a few times, mindful of keep a safe distance between them, and when it hit him, Dean felt a very, very strange sensation settle in the base of his spine. "Are you in rut, Cas?"

The immediate way which his smile turned sheepish is enough of an answer. Dean took a step back, the same fear he'd felt over the past few days coming back with a sudden force. 

"It's just the tail end," admitted Cas as he deposited the grocery bags on the counter, obviously trying to placate his guest, "and I took a little something to take the edge off."

Dean didn't know exactly what that meant, but that wasn't the problem he had. "Shit, man. You should have told me. You didn't need to be taking care of me while you're... and especially..." 

He was trying to say something, but even implying it made him feel uncomfortable in about a thousand ways, so he stopped. 

"No, it was fine." Cas was occupied in putting away the groceries, but it seemed like he maybe he was avoiding Dean's eye on purpose. Not that Dean particularly wanted to have one of their patented intense staring contents when talking about something so implicitly... sexual. _Eesh_. He shivered even at the thought of it. 

"C'mon, man, don't-"

"No, really, Dean," Cas interrupted. His cheeks were very pink and his voice uncharacteristically small, "It helped. It was the easiest rut I've had in a long time."

Dean thought about that a lot for a few days after Cas said it. And then he spent probably just as much time trying to scrub that entire conversation from his brain. 

"We can arrange that," is what Cas says now, in his ugly car with a beautiful view somewhere near the Utah border. Dean had been so wrapped up in his own bullshit that he had forgotten what they were talking about all together. 

After a few seconds of backtracking and reflection, he sits up a bit in his seat and asks, "Yeah?" without trying to sound too excited. At this point, he's used to having absolutely nothing work out in his favor, so he's not exactly looking for a reason to get his hopes up. 

But Cas sounds pretty serious when he says, "We can try, at least."

"Okay," Dean replies, staring across the bench seat at Castiel for a few moments before turning away once more. School would be good. It's a plan at least, which makes Dean now realize that he is living as of this moment in a completely unplanned existence. He has nothing in his pocket for when he arrives in California; he doesn't even know where he's sleeping tonight. The only thing he knows is that he's got Cas at his side. For now. 

So, school is a place to start. After that, probably a job. A job means money, which Dean could use to maybe find his own place, to wriggle out a little bit from under Castiel's protection. Not that it's so terrible being stuck with him, but... still. Dean can take care of himself. 

As for that evening's sleeping arrangement, it ends up being a little complicated. That night they drive longer than expected, which puts them further down the road than anticipated, where there’sonly two hotels in sight, with no vacancy between them. 

“I’m so sorry, Dean,” Castiel apologizes profusely- seriously, kind of overkill in Dean's opinion, “I’m sorry, I didn’t know-”

“Dude. I don’t care,” Dean brushes it off as easily as anything, “so we’ll sleep in the car. No biggie.”

And truly, it is no biggie. Cas was the one paying for the rooms anyways. If not for him, Dean would have been left out in the cold. He’s happy to spend a night in the backseat, if only to lessen his financial dependency on this random alpha.

Truth be told, Dean sleeps much more comfortably that night than he had the one before. The backseat is worn and comfy, his body sinking in the leather with just a little bit of give. And his nose is once again filled with that scent, the one that rubs a hand down his band, whispers in his ear, strokes his gently to sleep. He curls his body around it and nuzzles into its cloud.

The last leg of the journey is ten hours- well, six hours for Dean. He wakes to find them already on the road, Castiel with a coffee in hand and a pensive look on his face as he stares down the road before him.

“How long we been goin’?” Dean grumbles, rubbing at his eyes with the soft wrist of his flannel.

Cas pauses to look down at the clock and then informs him, “Just over four hours. We have six to go.”

Castiel is normally a pretty calm guy- and in Lawrence he had no reason not to be. His job was low key, he was pretty well set-up. The most stressful thing in his life was… well, it was probably Dean, to be honest, at least as of recently. 

In the last few days though, he seems changed. He's quiet, and he's not checking up on Dean every couple of minutes to make sure he doesn't need or want anything. And it's not that Dean wants him to be checking up all the time. But... it's weird. He's just noticing it, is all. 

They spend the remainder of the morning in silence, neither one of them trying to initiate any conversation. Only once, when they drive by the big sign welcoming them at last to the state if California, do either one of them make a noise. Dean gasps and smiles wide, feeling pretty astounded to have actually finally made it here. He's seen pictures and movies and everything- but he never thought he'd get to be out here for himself.

He turns to Cas, primed to tell him to honk the horn or mark the occasion in some way at least, but he finds that Castiel's face has turned into a dark scowl where he would normally find an easygoing expression. Dean clams up at that, unwilling to ask for any more information, and goes back to the quiet that seems to be an unspoken agreement for the morning. 

The silence gives Dean time to think. Too much of it, frankly. He tries to distract himself (at least there's more to see than corn this far West), but his mind always circles back to the same thing. 

He thinks of his mom and Sammy sat around the breakfast table right now. Even his dad, grumpy over his mug of coffee, newspaper crinkling between his hands. He has big hands, John does, a real Alpha strength to them. Dean looks down at his own hands now and notices for the first time how small they are, how delicate. It seems obvious that they'd belong to an omega. 

A peculiar feeling prickles at him, and he wonders. Had it always been like this? Had the signs been there all along, and he was just unwilling to see them?

Dean asks himself if maybe that's why his dad acted the way he did. Why he was so angry when Dean presented. Dean had thought it was because it was a surprise, but maybe... that wasn't true. Maybe it was that his dad had spent so long telling himself that Dean wasn't like this, that he couldn't be, that when it turned out that way in the end... well, he was angry. 

He's surprised to see how much he misses his father. He wouldn't have thought he would, and he doesn't particularly want to, but he does. He misses his mom more, though. Misses the way she smiles at him and ruffles his hair and hugs him when he didn't even know that's why he needed. It might make him sound like a baby, but whatever. Dean wants his mom. 

And his little brother too. He knows that Sammy is confused right now. But that could change. He's just a kid, he's just copying what he's seeing his dad do. But Dean had always looked out for the little brat, and Sam looked up to him. What is he gonna do now without his big brother? Would he hate Dean for running away, like a coward? Is his mom scared for him, is she worried?

Maybe Dean had ought to write them a letter or something, tell them where he is. Or he could call them once they got to wherever Cas was taking them, just to say that he was okay. 

Two days ago he couldn't have felt more ready, more bursting to strike out n his own and put as many miles as he could between himself and the place he had always called home. But now that's he's here, that's he's crossed the border and he can almost smell the ocean air, Dean is filled with ten different kinds of doubts. 

He runs through it in his head, the phone call, just to think about what he might say, and already he's getting choked up at the idea of his dad answering the phone. What if he said that he didn't care? Told Dean to stay gone and don't even come back? 

What if he couldn't be bothered to stay anything at all, and just hung up?

Maybe some day Dean will be ready for that conversation. But right now he isn't. Everything is too fresh.

But he'll still think about the letter. 

Finally, after a long day of driving, two days cramped up in each other's space and smells, Cas pulls the car off of the freeway and into a beachy, residential neighborhood. An anxiety mounts in Dean, though he doesn't quite know why. But this feels like somhe'sething ending and starting all at once, like he's closed the door on something without looking back to make sure he had all his things. 

But there's no turning back now. He's here. With Cas. 

A real sense of _what the fuck am I doing_ smacks Dean in the face, but it's at that very moment that Castiel mutters something affirmative and pulls the car into the driveway of one of the houses. A blue one, sort of classic in its appearance, but much, much bigger than what Dean had been expecting. When Cas said he had a place to crash in Cali, he'd figured it would be the couch of some twenty-something college student, or a one-room shack in someone's backyard. 

"This is it?" he demands, disbelieving. His eyes dart from the front of the house back to his travel partner, and he can't help it if his jaw is sort of hanging in shock. 

Castiel cuts the engine without looking away from the facade of the house. "Yes," he answers simply, but Dean can hear the quiet way he adds to himself, "unfortunately."

He doesn't know what to do with that, but he's thinking about asking what the fuck it's supposed to mean, when Cas jerks open the door and promptly exits the car, giving Dean no warning and no direction, so he's left to follow blindly and do the same. Cas grabs one of his bags out of the backseat and then marches up the stone path to the house with so much determination, it's like he's daring someone to stop him. Dean casts a glance around at the rest of the neighborhood, and feels small in comparison. 

The houses are immense, and beautiful, and the way the light from the setting sun frames their perfectly-trimmed gardens, it's like something out of a another world. Dean has been wearing the same clothes for two days, barely had a shower. The _what the fuck am I doing_  feeling gets an asterisk added to it as the words _here_ appears in bold at the end of the question. 

Cas is on the porch now, hunched over and flipping up the doormat that lays there. He's searching for something. Dean has a terrible, horrible thought that maybe Castiel's plan this whole time was to do a little b and e, but then he remembers what dorky librarian he's thinking of, and the thought is gone again. 

Just as he reaches the doorstep to join the dork in question, the door swings open in a dramatic _whoosh_ , and Cas whips up to a standing position faster than Dean can track the movement. 

What follows is the seconds after is something of a heated standoff. Cas goes full-Alpha, in a way Dean has never seen. Puffs up his chest, chin up, lips in a firm line. The other man just relaxes against the frame of the door as a cool smiles takes over his face. 

The more at ease he looks, the more anger Castiel seems to emit. Dean does his best to just shut up for as long as he can (which, knowing him, is never long). 

“Well, well, well,” sings the man standing in the threshold, “Look what the old pussycat dragged in.”  He scents the air, and then sets his sights on Dean. "And with a yummy little treat, as well. My, my Cassie, how you've changed."

Dean doesn't know what that means. Not that he's supposed to, it's very clear that this conversation is not meant for him. But still, he feels weird. 

Castiel stops glaring long enough to heave a long-suffering sigh. “Gabriel, would you please let us in?"

"My word, Castiel," says the man with a frown, "We don't want to be rude, do we? A little introduction wouldn't hurt us."

"Fine." The words come out tight from between his clenched teeth. "This is Dean. Dean, Gabriel… my brother.”

Before he can stop himself, Dean blurts out, “I thought you didn’t talk to your family.” Because hadn't he just said that? In the car not forty-eight hours before? 

Gabriel doesn't take a second before he whips around and spits out, “And I thought omegas were supposed to be quiet and obedient.” 

Dean can feel his nostrils flare immediately, for at least ten different reasons, but he doesn’t know this guy and beside that he should probably at least try to be nice because that would make Castiel’s life easier on some level. But still, he doesn’t like being written off so easily, so he bares his teeth in his best effort to impersonate an alpha.

“Ooh,” the man at the door sing-songs as his eyebrows do a dance of their own, “he’s feisty.”

Castiel grabs his bag and pushes past Gabriel to enter the house. He looks behind him for Dean to do the same. “This is going to be excellent,” he mutters under his breath. Dean follows, mutely, because there's nothing else for him to do. He watches as cas navigates fluidly, tensely through this massive house as if its his own. The whole time, he can feel this Gabriel's eyes on the back of his head, and he knows that there's some smug grin there as he watches Dean follow after Castiel like a good little omega.  

Dean sighs deeply and wonders to himself if California will be half as different as he thought it would be. 


	4. Chapter 4

California _is_ pretty different, Dean can say after his first few weeks there. The weather, at least, is a complete one-eighty from temperate Kansas springtime. And the views- holy crap, Dean can hardly believe it’s real when he looks out his bedroom window every morning. 

The people here are different, too. They’re way more relaxed- about everything, but more specifically about presentation, which comes as a huge relief to Dean. Nobody notices, or if they do, they don’t care. Not even one person has called him on out on his presentation, or referred to him as an omega. Except Gabriel, but Dean has mostly gotten used to tuning him out. Though he’s not as terrible as Dean originally though. Mostly just annoying. 

He finds it easy here. Easy in a way that he’s not sure he ever expected, in any of his half-cocked fantasies about riding a bus out here and starting fresh. 

That’s probably mostly to do with Castiel. It feels weird to admit it, but Dean knows it has to be true. After all, it is his place Dean’s staying at. Or, his brother’s place. Maybe? The actual details of this whole arrangement have yet to be specified in Dean’s presence. But, he’s got a roof over his head and a bed to himself- which is way more than he originally bargained for-  so he’s happy not to pry. For now. 

Cas has also been trying to help him sort the rest of his shit out, too, which is more than Dean deserves. He’s looking into schools and calling different doctors, trying to see who’ll prescribe the stuff he needs without parental permission. Castiel’s already found a new job working at some… archive… thing? It’s like a library. Dean thinks. Anyway, every day when he gets home, even if he looks like he’s just been drug through the ringer, he always sits down to help Dean work on his resume or whatever else kind of bullshit problem he has. 

Recently, he took Dean out to an old parking lot down down the by the beach to give him driving lessons. They didn’t stay long- Castiel was pretty jumoy with Dean behind the wheel, which Dean didn’t know why because he is an awesome driver. But there was a cop circling the block and Dean figuerd what they were doing wasn’t particularly kosher so he let Cas take over the wheel. 

And sometimes he even just listens, when Dean has to rant about some roadblock or whatever other insignificant bullshit happened in his day. Even when his eyes are glazing over cus he’s so tired, he never tells Dean to shut up or leave him alone.

You’ll never catch him saying it, but Dean is actually… kind of… glad that he’s got Cas with him here.

Anyway.

He’s got a new coffee shop too, just a two blocks and ten minutes away from the house on foot. He doesn’t do homework there, but he spends hours in concentration anyways; now that he’s looking for a job. A job that will for some inexplicable reason hire a sixteen-year-old drop out with almost nothing to offer except a reasonable amount of common sense and a sharp tongue for sarcasm. 

His hopes are pretty low, but he’s still trying. 

He’s also got a new barista. This one’s missing the tattoos, but she’s cute and she’s got curly hair that she wears over big earrings, and she smiles when Dean makes stupid jokes about the pastries sitting in the display case. She’s a beta, but it seems like she’s totally indifferent to all that crap. Last week, she wrote her number on the side of Dean’s to-go cup, and the next day he texted her a really terrible joke about coffee beans, and she responded with a meme that made him laugh so hard he had to put his phone down so he didn’t wet the screen with tears. 

They had their date today. 

And it was fine. It was good. Just as good as any other date Dean’s ever been on. Not that they’re so numerous, because hey, he’s only sixteen so it’s not like he’s had all the time in the world to go scoring babes.

She picked him up, and Dean tried his hardest to be cool with that. Especially since she has a car and he doesn’t and he can’t drive anyway, so it wouldn’t make any sense for him to pick her up anyway. But he would’ve liked it, you know, if he could be the guy. Do it all, like, old-fashioned. She did let him open the car door for her, though, which made him feel pretty good. 

They had a lot of fun. They went mini-golfing, which Dean hadn’t done in a long time, not since he had teammates that he called friends and cheerleaders clambering to hang out with him. It almost made him feel something, sad or nostalgic or some other thing he couldn’t quite give a name, too- but it only lasted for a second, and then Cassie was asking him to help her work on her stance. 

He was pretty sure that she was only pretending to be bad so he’d wrap his arms around her and show her how it’s done. But Dean didn’t mind. It made him feel good, made him feel manly and attractive, like he used to when he’d take girls out. 

Afterward, he bought her an ice cream and they sat along a sea wall by the beach. He told her how he’d never seen the ocean before coming here, and she told him how she couldn’t imagine a life without the comfort of knowing the sea was just within reach.

They kissed. Not making out, not hot or heavy, no hands roaming with a mind of their own. Just… lips, touching, brushing, moving. In the meeting of their mouths, Dean found the same feeling that had been running current during the whole time of the date. Which was, in a word: neutral. 

It was nice. Kissing is never not nice, especially when you’re doing it with someone as pretty as Cassie. Someone who’s nice and laughs at your jokes and doesn’t care if you’re a stupid freaking omega and will still let you open car doors and pay for ice cream. 

But the whole time Dean had been waiting for that… spark. God, that sounds cheesy. It’s not like he lives in some Hallmark movie. But, maybe just this one thing they got right. He didn’t feel that drop in his stomach when he saw her face moving in towards his; didn’t light up like a fireworks show when her hand touched his leg. Even when he had his arms wrapped around her, his mouth so close to her ear, it was just…. neutral.

Still he told, when she dropped him off just now at the house, that he’d call her. That he’d like to do this again. And she smiled so big and so bright that Dean thought it was true, he would like to see her again. And, who knows, maybe next time that spark will just magically appear out of nowhere. Maybe sometimes sparks need some time to form. 

He thinks this to himself as he shuffles in through the front door, but his head hangs down hopelessly. He should be riding high, but instead the opposite feels true. 

What day is it? Thursday? Gabe’s probably got some roller-blading book club or something he has to go to. Dean can probably chill without have to worry about him, at least until later tonight. That'll be good, if nothing else. 

A sudden thirst takes him over and has him walking over to the fridge to remedy it. He opens the door, thinking to grab a soda or something (since he’s finally staying in a place where a health nut isn’t the primary grocery shopper). But a colored label catches his eye, about thirty of them in fact, and a terrible mischievous idea takes hold of Dean’s brain.

He could probably just sneak one of the beers. They’re Gabe’s, of course, you can tell by the purple swirls and unicorn horns that decorate the bottles, but there’s definitely enough in there that it would go unnoticed. Dean hasn’t had a beer in months, not since the last party he went to back in Kansas, which feels like it might as well be another lifetime. 

He likes the idea, of taking just one beer and going up to his room. Holing himself up and plating himself by the window and staring out and the shore line, trying not think about anything at all.

“What do you think you’re doing, exactly?”

Dean pauses with his hand on the fridge handle. Can Gabriel read minds now? No, certainly not. He’s a beta, he can’t even smell the nervous guilt seeping out of Dean. 

So Dean turns around as casually as he can and responds with all the boredom he can muster. “Grabbing a soda. What’s it to you?”

Gabriel rolls his eyes like this conversation- all two seconds of it- is already taking a toll on his energy supply. Dean tries not to be distracted by the Hawaiian style shirt he’s wearing, though it’s such an assault to the senses that it feels like a useless fight. “No, you dolphin-brained pretty boy. I mean what are you _doing_?”

“Dolphins are actually pretty smart, you know.”

Gabriel shakes his head vigorously. “Do you need glasses or something?”

Okay, now Dean is really confused at this line of questioning. “What?” is the only thing he can ask, and he’s willing to admit that it comes out kind of dumb. 

Gabriel rolls his eyes and mumbles something under his breath that sounds like ‘lughead’. Dean opens his mouth to bark out his indignation, but it’s actually preferable to be called an omega again. 

“Look, I know you’re pretty blind to the obvious, but could you take a look at that sad sack sitting on the porch out there?” Dean’s gaze follows where Gabriel’s finger is pointing, and he sees a messy crop of black hair poking up. His back is to them but still somehow he looks so... sad. “I don’t-- I don’t know your deal, and I don’t know what’s going on between you and my brother, but could you just… could you just not do shit that makes him look like that?”

Dean frowns, but it’s more for himself than for Gabriel’s benefit. He doesn’t mean to hurt Castiel. But he doesn’t know what he’s supposed to do. He’s just a kid, Castiel’s an adult. Shouldn’t he be able to handle this stuff on his own?

“He’s not my... We’re not married,” Dean tells Gabe in a sigh. He starts to bite his lip, but stops himself. “I don’t know what you want from me.”

Dean doesn't think Gabe is a bad guy. Probably not, at least. He seems even funny, sometimes, when he's not annoying the piss out of Dean. But the way he's staring at him right now... he looks like he's trying to melt Dean with his laser vision or some shit. 

“You ever thought about how good you have it?" He hurls finally. "I mean for an omega. Seriously. There are people… there are people out there who don’t really give a shit about how you feel. Most omegas, they want a place to stay? They want to hitch a ride half way across the country? They’re paying for it, whether they like it or not- and I _don’t_ mean in cash.”

Now, that just about makes Dean light up to his ears; makes him want knock Gabriel in the jaw and ask him where the fuck he gets off trying to make Dean feel guilty for not being miserable. He’s sixteen, and it’s his fault that alphas all over the world as too hopped-up not to sticking their know where it isn’t wanted? He’s supposed to feel lucky that he hasn’t been (successfully) sexually assaulted yet?

He turns his head away and bites down on his lower lip. He’s starting to understand what Cas was saying about how excellent this will be, the three of the crashing together.  Maybe coming here was a bad idea. It wouldn’t be surprising, Dean’s pretty much batting .1000 when it comes to shit decision-making skills. 

“Don’t break something thinking too hard,” Gabe scoffs dismissively, turning and leaving the room before Dean can think of a snappy comeback. He throws up the bird and grunts aggressively, though it doesn’t do much to relieve his anger. 

This is not his fault. He _told_ Cas right at the beginning. He’s not like that and he didn’t want anything like that, and he’s been saying it over and over again since they’ve known each other.

Dean takes a step toward the back porch and watches Castiel’s back wordlessly. He tells himself he doesn't know why Cas is sulking, but even in his head he calls his own bullshit. He knows good and well why, and even though he doesn't really know what it would feel like to feel whatever Cas does towards him... he does know heartbreak. And for all his talk, he's not cold enough to enjoy doing it to someone else. 

He waits until he hears the front door close, with a tad more aggression than he would deem necessary, then he goes to the fridge and rebelliously pulls a beer out and cracks it open. Then, after a moment of reflection, he goes back and gets another, and then goes marching determinedly out toward the back porch.

The sound of the waves crashing immediately takes the edge off of his mood, and combined with the warmth coming from the rays of sunlight that was he over his face, it's easy to see why Cas would want to sit out here when he's in a bad mood. It's a damn sight better than any place in Lawrence. 

He approaches slowly, so as not to scare him. As soon as Dean gets close enough, Castiel's nose twitches and he jumps slightly in his sit. His eyes move away from the water and suddenly land on Dean. 

“Hello, Dean.” There’s something poised on the end of his tongue. 

Dean tries to act casual, like he doesn't notice. “Hey. I brought you this. I knew you like your tea, but I figured…” He holds out one of the beers to where Castiel can reach for it. 

Cas takes the bottle from his hand and his face softens. “Thank you. Now seems like a good time for a drink.”

“Yeah.” Because what else is there to say to that? Dean decides to try for a joke. “You’re not gonna call the cops on me if I drink this one myself, are you?”

Castiel chuckles, which was the desired effect. “No. Not today.” Dean nods, pleased to have successfully lightened Cas' mood even a little. He sinks down onto the porch beside Cas' chair, and they each take a  "I suppose Gabe's gone off to his country-western bowling evening, then?"

"Heh. Yeah." Dean would probably find that funny if hearing Gabe's name didn't make him boil over with anger. He's not sure if he should say that though, since he isn't too sure of the situation between Castiel and Gabriel. They might hate each other, but it's still probably never a good idea to go bad-mouthing someone's brother to them. 

He thinks of Sam then. He might be part of the reason why Dean decided to split from home, but he still loved the little runt. If he ever heard someone utter a single bad word about him, he'd high-tail it back to Kansas just to personally throw the first punch. 

So, he keeps his thoughts on Gabe to himself. 

Castiel doesn't say anything after that, so for a while, the only sounds between the them are the waves rushing against the shore and the birds cawing over head. Dean tries to appreciate the serenity, even just for a few seconds, but his brain is working over time trying to think to something to say to Castiel. Some way to show his appreciation, or something. It would easier if he could do it without words. 

He hears the sound of Castiel swallowing loudly before he downs a long sip of his beer and then asks, “So how was your date?”

Dean goes pink. He doesn’t know why he feels that way, embarrassed, but he does. “It was fine,” he answers evasively. “She was nice.”

Castiel nods. He looks like he wants to ask something else, but he doesn’t. Dean doesn’t want to know what kinds of questions are going through Cas’ head right now. What kind of pictures or feelings. 

He moves quickly to change the subject. “Y’know,” he coughs out, clearing his throat, “I was thinkin’, I don’t really know a whole lot about you. I mean, we’ve been sleeping under the same roof for like three months now and all I know is that you studied history and you used to be a librarian.”

That seems to help change Cas’ mood. He nods slowly, and a curl creeps up into the corner of his lips. “It’s not a terrible amount of information. I suppose I don’t have much on your either.”

Which, Dean thinks, is actually way weirder to think about. Cas probably would have mated him on the spot that first day when they met in the coffee shop back in Lawrence. And he doesn’t even know Dean’s favorite Zeppelin album or the basic things like that. 

Does he knows Dean’s birthday?

“Well, Dean, if there’s anything you want to know, ask away. I’m an open book."

Dean casts a look over his shoulder back at the house. There might be a few chapters redacted from that book, he thinks. 

“Yeah… okay, um. What’s your favorite movie?” That’s easy enough. A nice softball to start them off. 

Castiel laughs out a breath of air, like the question comes as a relief. “Good one. It’s Gladiator.”

“Because of the history?” asks Dean, genuinely curious. 

Castiel’s features go dark, but not in a dangerous way. “More because of the shirtless Russell Crowe.”

Dean almost chokes on the sip of beer he’d been gulping down. He stops himself, luckily, but not so quick that Castiel doesn’t catch him and have a good laugh at his expense. Better to steer away from topics... like that. “Is that the kind of history you like? Like, real old shit.”

“Yes, Dean, I like the real old shit.” He laughs, and it sounds easy, and Dean thinks that maybe most of his bad mood has flown away. “I’m primarily interested in Europeans history, I’m very intrigued by the first world war. But I’ll read a book or watch a movie about pretty much anything.”

Dean shakes his head, raising the bottle to his lips again. The beer does taste good, as expected. It makes him feel relaxed, at ease. "Not me," he confesses in response to Castiel's statement, "I get bored real easy."

Cas peers at him sideways over the top of his bottle. "Yes. I had noticed that."

It used to bother him, the idea of Castiel noticing things about him. It meant that he was watching Dean, paying extra attention even when Dean wasn't aware. Now it doesn't even phase him. It's just another one of those things that Cas says sometimes. 

Dean drains his bottle and turns back to the ocean. He wonders if he'll ever get bored of the sight. It's hard to imagine it now; every time he look out at that massive expanse of blue he finds another question that comes to mind. What lives out there in those waters? What plants and animals? If he jumped in right now and started swimming, what's the first landmass he'd hit? How long would it take to sail to Hawaii? To Asia?

Maybe in a different life, with a better brain, he might have been a poet. Or an adventurer. 

As it is, he's an omega. 

When Cas speaks again, Dean jumps in surprise. He'd been deep in his thoughts about the ocean, apparently. He pulls a face at himself. Then he processes what Castiel said, in his detached, matt-of-fact way that he says things. 

“I guess you’re probably ready to move on. Find your own place, I mean.”

And he just… he sounds so sad when he says it. When he won’t meet Dean’s eyes. Dean might have a lot of thoughts about alphas and their bullshit. But right now? Dean... kind of agrees with Gabriel. He doesn't want to keep doing things that make Cas look... like that. 

“No," he responds with a shrug, like it's casual, like it doesn't mean anything at all. "Not for a while. I think I’ll stay here a while.”

The sigh that comes from Castiel is one of the most relieved sounds Dean has ever heard. It borders on sounding happy, joyful, which Dean didn't know was possible for a sigh. “Well. I can’t say I’m not glad to hear that.”

And Dean, too. Weirdly. The idea of sticking with Cas makes him feel secure, comfortable. Makes him feel good. 

That's a whole other can of worms to open up. He's trying not to think too much about it. 

“Even though Gabe is no peach to live with, I’ll tell you that.”

He'd meant it as a joke, but Cas winces. “I know. I believe that’s my fault. I’m sorry you’re getting dragged in the middle.” Castiel peels at the purple design on the beer label. “Gabriel is… different, when he’s in a good mood. When he knows that he can trust you.”

 _Right_ , Dean thinks. “And right now he can’t trust me.”

Cas's brow furrows in Dean's direction, like he doesn't know why Dean might've said that. “Right now he’s struggling with the fact that he can’t trust _me_.” 

That’s surprising to Dean. He wonders if maybe now is his moment, the right time to ask more about the back story, with Cas’ family and this house. He doesn’t know why he’s dying to know, but he feels the pull of curiosity tugging at him.

But he loses his chance as quickly as it had appeared. Castiel pushes himself up to his feet, wiping a hand over his wrinkled clothing. It's only now that Dean notices the way the air is getting cold as the sun sinks further down toward the horizon. 

Cas leans down to offer him a hand, asking in a friendly tone, “Would you like to watch a movie with me, Dean?”

Dean had been planning to go up to his room and be alone for the rest of the night. Just to sit and think and if it turned into a bit of a pity party, there would be no one there to stop him. But, Cas' suggestion sounds pretty nice. 

“Yeah, sure,” he acquiesces, rising to his feet. As he moves toward the door into the house, though, he adds, “Maybe… one without a bunch of shirtless dudes.”

Castiel claps a strong hand on Dean's shoulder and barks out a deep full laugh. The sound is so loud and contagious that Dean can't help letting a smile onto his own face. “Alright. Whatever you want.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shorter than the last one, but I'm writing these things as they come to me. *shrug*
> 
> Just a friendly reminder to come check me out at my tumblr: https://blueskies-and-applepies.tumblr.com


	5. Chapter 5

Dean’s never had a nightmare before. Never really had a reason to, he guesses, if nightmares are the kind of thing you need a reason for. 

He can’t remember it, but he knows he’d had one tonight. He knows because he wakes in a panic, sweat sticking to his overheated skin and a weird sense laying low in his gut. For a horrifying split second, he thinks it might be another heat coming on, and he wrestles with the urge to launch himself out of his window and get lost in the ocean. 

But, with bitter relief, he realizes that it’s just another nightmare that’s interrupted his sleep. That’s the second one this week, and he’s lost count of how many in the time since he and Cas came out here. He’s gotten used to the sound of his blood churning in his ears, of his teeth grinding in his skull. It’s practically become a nighttime routine. 

 He can’t be sure what it is that’s triggered this new and very fun new detail in his life. He’s tried searching online, but every site just tells him that ‘night terrors’ are a common ‘omega problem’ and ‘nothing that can’t be fixed but the love and comfort of a good alpha’, so they could take that crap and shovel it, thanks very much. 

Dean might not be smart, but he knows a few things. Like, for example, the fact that ditching school and your family and uprooting your entire existence to move across the country with some dude you don’t know and his half-wit brother is most likely something professionals would deem ‘stressful’. Stress probably equals nightmares. 

He wishes he could talk to Sammy about this. That little nerd would know all about this stuff, no doubt. Or if he didn’t already, then he’d go find some book to stick his nose in until he could give Dean a report about all of his symptoms and exactly what was causing them.  

He’ll probably be in college-level courses soon, a kid as smart as he is. Mom and Dad’ll be so proud of him. Dean will, too. Just from two-thousand miles away. 

Dean rolls over onto his side and stares up at the ceiling. He’d kill to get some sleep. Even without the freaking bad dreams, his whole sleep cycle has been fucked ever since they left Lawrence. At first he was blaming it on the time difference, but with all this time passed, he thinks that excuse smells a little like bullshit now. 

He rolls over and sighs loudly, for no reason other than that it feels good to make noise. 

He could try to give Charlie a call. Though a quick glance over at the clock next to his bed (analog, and shaped like a cat, because for some reason Gabriel had allowed a batty old lady to do his interior designing) reveals that it’s around four am in Kansas; and even though she’s been known to stay up way too late waging campaigns, it’s still a school night, and somebody should get some sleep and try to lead a productive life, even if Dean can’t. 

Actually, he recalls with a terrible suddenness, that’s not even true. He has a job interview tomorrow. It’s not a place he particularly wants to work- a grocery store chain that pays a whopping ten bucks an hour- but it’s something. It’s a start. And Dean’s pretty sick of sitting around of waiting for things to start. 

He heaves out another long breathe and tosses a few more times between the sheets. Air blows in through the windows smelling of saltwater, but for once it doesn’t make Dean for calm or at peace. Actually, it makes him feel kind of sick. 

He stands to his feet and goes out into the hallway, headed down towards the bathroom (one of the bathrooms, because _whoever_ this house belongs to is freaking loaded.). 

His feet stop without permission outside Cas’ door, and then he purposefully starts to linger there, considering. Cas is always offering, _if you ever need anything Dean, anything at all._ Dean even swears he can remember him saying _even if it’s at two in the morning,_ but it’s possible that his brain is just making that up now to make this more convenient. 

But it still gives Dean stomach cramps to think about crawling into some Alpha’s bedroom at two in the morning and begging for his help. 

His hands go to play with the fabric of his t-shirt, when an idea comes to him that seems much more… palatable. 

Listen. He’s not dumb enough not to notice exactly _which_ scent is the one that makes him feel calm and cool when he’s otherwise feeling on edge. He might not like it, and he really doesn’t like what he thinks it might mean somewhere down the line… but for right now he’s got to live with it. 

But that doesn’t mean he has to go curling up next to him in bed. He doesn’t even have to wake him up. If Dean can just sneak into Cas’ room and maybe snag one of his shirts or sweaters, then he can take that back to his room and it stuff it under his pillow or something and then he’ll be able to get to sleep. 

It’s kind of a twisted plan, but Dean doesn’t care. He’s exhausted. He wants to fix this sleep problem so bad, his eyes are on the verge of welling up with tears. 

So he cracks open the door and makes the most effort possible not to make a single goddamn sound. He’s actually never been in Cas’ room before, he realizes in this very moment, so he doesn’t know if the floorboards squeak or the floor is messy, or maybe he leaves out Lego booby traps to catch trespassers in the night and Dean is already screwed. 

But the floor is silent and there’s not a Lego in sight, as far as Dean can tell, and he makes it all the way across the room without a problem. He goes to Cas’ dresser and pauses, taking a second to think on the best way to do this. After a minute, he sees a chair just next to the dresser, where a sweater hangs over the back of the chair. Just looking at it makes Dean’s nostrils twitch.

Cas must have worn the sweater today. Dean can’t remember exactly, he’s not sure if he saw him much during the day, but he can’t stop himself from reaching out and grabbing the article of clothing; clutching it against his chest and inhaling deep the strong scent coming off of it. He stays there for a second, feeling the way his heartbeat calms in his chest as he does. 

Jesus Christ, this is some next-level bullshit. Dean is definitely going to have to sort whatever this out, and sooner rather than later. 

With that thought in his mind, he turns to head back to his own room, where he can reflect on all the ways he’s surely getting himself in way too deep for his own good, until he finally falls asleep (hopefully for the rest of the night). 

As he’s walking, his eyes fall onto Castiel, who’s curled up under his blankets, shirtless, mouth just slightly open with his arms wrapped around a large pillow. Dean stares at the pillow. He stares for a good, long minute

He must really be exhausted because something is his head is acting up right now. It's like... like he’s completely out of control. He’s got all these feelings, and he doesn’t know what they are, but they’re coming fast and loose, and it makes Dean want to plant his feet right there and keep sniffing Cas’ stupid sweater. 

Without knowing what he’s doing, Dean sinks down onto the ground, just beyond the foot of Castiel’s bed. There’s a blanket there, rumpled on the floor, and Dean lays himself on it, with the sweater underneath his head like a pillow. It helps, the comfort- the softness of the comforter and the smell. He thinks to himself that he’ll stay just for a minute or two, and then he’ll go back to his own room. 

“Dean?”

When his eyes open, Dean is completely confused. His eyelids are heavy, almost impossible to open, sleep is sitting heavy on his brain like a drug. It’s dark still, but one ray of the glowing, orange sunrise cracks in through the window. A voice repeats his name and Dean inclines toward it and groans, cuddling his head further against his pillow. 

“Dean? What are you doing down there?”

That's Cas voice, but Dean doesn't know why-- _oh shit_. He sits up quickly, hands pushing against the hard wooden floor, the blankets tangling around his legs as he moves like a dying fish. His voice comes out strangled. “I… fuck. I n… couldn’t sleep.”

He covers his face with his hands and winces where Cas can't see him. Shit, could he sound anymore like a helpless kid? Going around and admitting to Castiel that he;'s got nightmares like some little baby. He should've made something up, anything; he would've, if his brain were working even at fifty percent function. But his vision is still foggy and his mouth feels really dry and…

He can sense the way Castiel is looking down at him. He’s perched on the bed all concerned, like he always is, but his eyebrows at bunched together in the middle of his face like he’s confused. 

Now he looks like _his_ mouth is dry, the way he opens and closes it a bunch without saying anything, and then darts his tongue out to lick at his lips. 

“Did you…. want to lie on the bed?” he asks cautiously. 

Dean leaps up to his feet faster than he’s ever done anything in his whole life. “No. I-- what? No.” He can’t get the words out fast enough. He tries to look at Cas with a burning glare, so that he can see how much he means it, but he has trouble meeting his eyes. So instead he just huffs out of the room and storms down the hall back to his own, and he thinks that just maybe it looks like he's pissed enough to cover up the embarrassment.  

It’s only when he’s slammed the door behind him that he looks down and realizes, that his fingers are clenched around the fabric of the sweater. 

 

  

He waits until after nine am before he even attempts to go down into the kitchen. Normally, he’d eat his breakfast earlier, but normally Cas is eating his at the same time, and if there is anything Dean wants to avoid right now, it’s… that. 

But Cas has to be at work at nine so that means he has to leave before then. Still, Dean lays in his bed and stares up at the ceiling, trying to empty his mind completely of thoughts. It works, for short periods, when he fixes his gaze on the ceiling fan and focuses on the sound of the waves that ebbs at the periphery of his consciousness. 

And then a rogue thought creeps in and the terrible anxiety climbs up his throat and makes Dean want to bash his head against the fucking wall. 

The thing is, it shouldn’t even as embarrassing as it is. It’s Cas after all, and Cas thinks that Dean is all sunshine and rainbows, that everything he does is perfect, like he’s practically got flowers coming out of his ass. He doesn’t care if Dean took an accidental nap on his bedroom floor just because he got a little scared in the nighttime. He's probably over the moon about it (which is another problem entirely, but that's too much for one morning).  

But… Dean cares. He cares because he doesn’t get it. He doesn’t know what’s happening to him, and that... well, it's freaking him out, to be honest. Especially when what he thinks might be happening is the same thing that everyone told him would happen… and exactly the one thing he is trying his hardest to avoid.  

Is he turning a weak, needy omega? Already? 

Maybe he oughta get out of here. Grab his bag and go, out the door, right now, before he has time to think too hard about it. Because he could do it, pretty easily- it’s not like he’s got much stuff, or anything to tie him to this place.  

Dean doesn't make a move. The idea is wiped away almost as soon as he thinks of it. He’s already run away from one life, and he knows that he can’t just go doing it every time he runs into a problem. No matter how tempting it might be. And, even if he wanted to leave this place, where would he go? What would be the point?

So, instead of running away, he just slinks down the stairs, into the kitchen, with his chin angled down toward the floor. He’s not hungry necessarily, but it’s something to do. 

He goes right for the fridge, without looking up, which is his first mistake. He opens it up and stares into the contents of the shelves, his eyes searching for something without letting his brain in on the secret.  

 _What am I looking for?_ he asks himself, before his eyes fall on an empty spot on one of the shelves of the door, and a signal goes off on his brain letting him know he’s got it. _Right, milk._ But, there isn’t any left. Great. 

He sighs loudly and closes the refrigerator, turning around as he does only to be stopped when the bottle of milk is unglamorously shoved in his face. He balks and steps back, finding that there’s a hand attached to the bottle and that hand is attached to an arm and that that arm belongs to Castiel.  

“Oh, I--” Cas starts to explain himself, flustered. Dean feels his eyes goes wide and blink several times. He doesn’t react more than that. There are no words in his brain. 

Castiel must be able to tell what he’s thinking. He usually can, which Dean finds especially annoying right now. “I… have a meeting this morning," he explains more clearly, "I’m… going in late.”

Dean doesn’t even bother to tell him ‘okay’ or ‘whatever’ or ‘that’s none of my business because you’re just my roommate and I don’t give a rat’s ass where you spend your mornings’. He just takes the bottle from his hand and then walks away. Grabs a bowl and the first box of cereal he sees (which of course is some sugar-overdose crap thanks to Gabriel) and then goes to sit down at the kitchen Island. 

Castiel, unfortunately, takes a seat next to him with his cup of tea in hand. On the bright side, he doesn’t actually say anything, which is a relief. Dean doesn’t either, and the minutes that follow are long and silent and possibly the most awkward Dean has ever 

Count on Gabe to fix that up right quick. 

“Oh, baby," he calls out with a devilish smile upon entering the room, "Someone pass me a knife so I can cut this tension. Trouble in paradise, is it?” 

Dean glares at him so fiercely he thinks that Gabe would melt if he wasn't made of such strong material. As it is though, he's made up of about ninety percent chocolate in some form, so really he shouldn't be so resilient.

He sees Dean's expression and frowns, as if wounded. “Well, who pissed in your Cheerios?” he retorts as he walks closer. 

Dean bares his teeth, all but ready to tell his host that he can fuck off somewhere else if he can't keep his mouth shut, but Castiel steps in before he has the chance. “Are we not allowed to have a quiet morning, Gabriel?” he sighs, without looking up from his tea. He sounds tired, which Dean pretends not to notice. 

Gabriel remains undiscouraged. “You two? Sure. I’m just accustomed to a certain amount of sexual tension in the house ever since you came in.” His eyes light up in that dangerously playful way. “Helps me get my fix now that Dr. Sexy’s on hiatus.” 

That’s it for Dean. He doesn’t need to take this. Not from this freakin'... freakin' beta. He stands to his feet and throws- literally throws- his dish into the sink and leaves it there. He’s not going to sit around and let Gabriel mock him to his face. Not today.

Before he heads up the stairs, he hears Castiel coming to his defense. He’s trying to keep his voice low, but Dean can still make out the words. “Leave him alone, would you? You don’t have to antagonize him like that.”

“But it’s so fun,” Gabe pouts back, and the anger in Dean instantly doubles. He runs up the stairs two at a time and goes into his room, then grabs the only jacket he has and runs for the front door as fast as he can. He just wants to be out of this house. To get some fresh air, clear his head. 

He's got some time before his interview, but he decides to head there anyways. The manager of the store thinks that he showed up early out of excitement, and it seems  to show him what an enthusiastic employee Dean would be. The interview goes well, and Dean gets the job. _Yippee_. 

Dean leaves the store feeling irritated- what a change- because the whole thing only took twenty minutes, and now he's stuck with some dumb job he's gonna hate. It's not like he knew before what he wanted to do, back when he was normal in Lawrence. But he definitely knows he doesn't wanna be some cart-pushing, shelf-stocking loser here is Palo Alto. 

So he does what he always does when he's annoyed: he walks. He spends a while walking out along the beach, because he likes being there and lessens the angry grumbling he does inside his own head. He likes to watch the people: the kids with their ice cream cones and the ladies sunbathing and the guys tossing around their frisbees. Today's a weekday though, so there's not that much of a crowd, which Dean is glad for. It'd probably just make him jealous. 

He wanders aimlessly for a while before he gets bored, his legs aching just a little and his stomach rumbling, and he decides he should probably head in the direction of somewhere. Anywhere but the house, but maybe somewhere with food. He thinks of possibly walking over to the coffee shop, and it seems particularly enticing. There is food there, and coffee, and Cassie. He can hang out there and chat with her, flirt and wink and just feel like a normal teenager for like ten minutes. 

The closer his feet bring him to his destination, though, a hesitation takes over him. When he's standing outside the cafe, he realizes why. He remembers doing this exact same thing, not so long ago, with Lisa. He tried to use her to get his confidence back, and she shot him down to his face in the most embarrassing way. And even though he knows Cassie is different- she's better than that, and she doesn't care what Dean is- he still feels almost paralyzed by the fear of rejection. 

(Behind that, another fear lurks a little deeper. Dean worries that maybe, if he's really, really honest with himself, he doesn't really care if Cassie doesn't want him. But that's insane because Dean Winchester is all about the ladies and has always been about the ladies and there's no way he'd ever change his mind about that.)

He stands on the street corner for a minute, bouncing back and forth between going in or just turning back around and going back to the beach. Luckily, it's just then that his phone starts to ring in his pocket, and when Dean catches sight of the caller idea, he heaves a literal sigh of relief.  

“Hey!" Charlie yells enthusiastically into his ear when he picks up. "My friend! My long-lost pal! Is this a bad time? Can you talk?”

The sound of her voice is like a balm. Dean leans back against the brick wall of a shop and lets his eyes drift shut. “No, this is… this is a really good time.”

Her can practically hear her cheesy smile. “Good! I didn’t know because of the whole time difference thing, but then I was like, screw it, time is a man-made concept anyway, but then I remembered how you sleep you like a bear and you get all grumpy when you get woken u-- hey, what is it?”

Dean’s doing a terrible job of hiding how happy he is to hear from her. He's chuckling into his palm when he answers. “Nothing. I just miss you, is all.”

“Oh, well. Good. I’d be thoroughly insulted if you didn’t." 

She tells him about her new girlfriend and how they met at the Ren Faire, and how much Dean would have liked the Ren Faire and that if he’s back next year she’ll save him a place in her Queen’s Court. She asks about California and how the people are out there.  

There are a lot of questions she doesn’t ask, and ones he doesn’t either. Dean thinks it’s better that way, for now. 

When they hang up, he promises to call her again soon. She threatens to hold him to that, and Dean slides his phone back into his pocket with a smile on his face. People may be difficult, and the world may change more quickly than he feels prepared for, but Charlie Bradbury will rest the same, and that’s a real source of comfort for Dean in this moment.  

He doesn’t go back to the house right away after they hang up. He wanders for a while, making sure to stay near places he recognizes. He walks far, though. Far enough that he almost wishes someone would pull over and offer him a lift back to his place. Even though he knows he wouldn’t take it. You can’t be too careful, as an omega. Trusting strangers with your safety is not part of the deal. 

Which is why he tries to rush home, to beat the street lights back to his neighborhood. He doesn’t quite make it- it’s dark by the time he gets home, but he feels safe right up until the moment he gets to the door. That’s the moment, surprisingly, when his heart starts to beat uncontrollably in his chest.

The second he opens the door, he sees someone leap up from the couch. Dean is tense enough that it makes him up, and Castiel looks much more apologetic than Dean thinks necessary. Dean stands in the doorway, nearly frozen, unsure what to say or do. That's getting to be an annoyingly familiar experience for him. 

Cas is in the same boat, from the looks of it. He hums and haws for a minute, standing in the middle of the living room, before he finally admits, “I was starting to get worried. I… thought about calling the police.”

Dean doesn’t have the energy to be ticked off about that. What’s more, he even understands it. He has been gone all day and it is dark out, and with all things considered… you just never know. 

“I’m fine,” he says, shrugging his jacket off and tossing it onto one of the chairs in the living room as he walks by, and before he can stop himself, “Sorry.”

“No, Dean," Castiel shoots back quickly, and it makes Dean, "I’m sorry. About this morning. I…”

Dean puts his hand up to stop him right there. “Can we not? For the love of God, can we not do this?’

Cas looks so distraught. More than Dean has ever seem him maybe. His hair is standing on end, going every which way, and he can't stop running his hands through it. He makes the effort to make eye contact with Dean. “I just… I need you to know that I would never take advantage of you.”

 _That_ makes Dean pause. “Wait, what? Cas, that’s not…”

It's coming out of left field for him, because that is not what he thought this discussion was going to be about. That's not what it is about to him. At least, not for the most part. He's uncomfortable, sure, but mostly whatever mixed up shit he's feeling directed at himself. He's not mad at Cas, or scared of him. He didn't think... didn't think Cas would _rape_ him or something.

“But it is," Cas cuts in, uncharacteristically. He looks shook up, like this thing has been bothering him so much that it's actually taking a physical toll on him. "I don’t pretend to know why you were on my floor this morning, nor if it was the first time, but I can wager a guess that it had something to do with my scent. Am I wrong?”

He pauses to give Dean time to correct him... which he doesn't. 

“Right. Well, that’s perfectly natural. We have… I know you don’t want to hear this, but we have a bond. And it’s… profound. It’s deep, it’s written in our bones. And you might not like it, but it seems to be having an effect on you as well.” 

Cas' gaze is wavering, but he's trying to present a solid front. Dean wonders to himself how long the poor guy had been sitting here, practicing this speech. A while, he figures. Probably a long while. So, Dean lets his keep going, lets him talk without interrupting, even though his eyes go wide when Cas talks about their "bond" and their bones (and secretly he wonders is Cas isn't maybe less concerned with bones and more concerned with _boners_.)

Castiel catches this and grows flustered, seemingly wanting to start over from the beginning. “I’m not… that’s not what I’m trying to say. What I mean is: you don’t owe me anything. You can still… benefit from this, even if you don’t want… the rest.”

“Benefit?” Dean repeats, a little on edge. Like, friends with benefits? Because that's not what he'd been looking for. 

Castiel shakes his head, and then explains, “If my scent, my presence, brings you comfort in some way, puts you at ease, then you should feel free to be able to indulge in that.”

It takes Dean a minute, but finally, he starts coming around on what he thinks Cas is getting at. 

“You mean, if I want to sleep on your floor, I can.” 

“I mean, if you want to sleep in my bed, you can,” Cas exhales at long last, apparently happy to be at a place of mutual understanding. He quickly clarifies his statement, “Not like that. That’s what I meant to say this morning, that there’s no-- you’re not in danger if you share my mattress. I wouldn’t ever… I can control myself. Trust me.”

Weirdly, Dean does. After his first heat and how Castiel managed to avoid humping him like a rabid dog, even though Dean heard him sometimes sitting out there on the other side of the door, physically pained. 

“I just want you to feel as comfortable as you can. As happy as you can. And I don’t need to get anything back from it.” This last part he vows as if it's part of some solemn oath, as if he's sworn to protect Dean from all the world's ills. Which, maybe he thinks he is. Dean wouldn't know. He's just an omega. 

Cas is cracking a grin now. It's uneasy, but he's trying to project a sense of levity for Dean."There's no reason for you to sleep on the floor with my dirty socks."

Part of Dean wants to tell Castiel that he's prefer a floor with dirty socks to a bed with an alpha, but he bites his tongue. Cas is being nice, and there's no reason why he can't return the favor. 

So, he does what he can to smile back and mutters a quick thank you before he runs up to his room. He doesn't tell Cas about the job. He wants to, and he doesn't. Maybe later. Now, he closes the door behind him and sinks onto the mattress. He prays that tonight he'll sleep easy. 

 

 

A week later, Dean wakes up in another cold sweat, and he feels the remnants of another nightmare burning in his chest. Behind his eyes sit images of his mother and brother and terrible flames engulfing them. It makes him clutch at his chest, where the air is tight and not moving.

He doesn’t even think about it. He just wants his airways to open and to get these pictures out of his mind.

So he gets out of his bed and goes right in Castiel’s, not even giving himself a second to pause. And he’s rewarded for it. The minute he lies down on the mattress, he settles into a cozy kind of peace.  

Cas grumbles and lifts his head, moves over to make space for his guest. He pretends not to notice what Dean’s doing, what it means, but Dean can feel the way he stiffens and pulls away, making sure no parts of their bodies are touching. He's grateful for it. Truly grateful. 

Dean's chest fills with something else lying there in that bed; something that takes the place of his fear and smooths its edges and makes it easy for Dean to breathe. He doesn't have time to think about it before he's asleep, snoring softly in and out, without a nightmare in sight. 


	6. Chapter 6

The supermarket isn’t the worst thing to ever happen to Dean- though, the bar for that is pretty low, to be fair.

Most of his co-workers are other omegas, a lot of single moms. Which is cool when you think about it. He overhears them talking alot, about how hard it is to find work, how at their other jobs they get talked over or pushed down or, even worse, felt up by alpha creeps- and he’s glad that someone’s giving them a job where they don’t have to put up with that crap.

He would have thought that a place like that would be kind of a shitshow, in terms of energy. Just lots of _emotion_ floating around all the time. But actually, Dean is surprised to find out that it’s not so bad. Actually- weirdly- this might just be the place where Dean’s felt the most comfortable in a long, long time. At least since that first morning when he... found out. 

That doesn’t mean the work isn’t challenging, though. Not mentally- honestly a trained monkey could probably take his place without anyone noticing- but physically. When he leaves at the end of each day, he barely has any energy left to do anything else. It makes wonder how everyone around him has been doing it for so long without complaining. 

And it especially makes him wonder how Cas could stand those days when he would stroll into the house after a long day and Dean would immediately pester him. Dean vows to himself never to do that again, not to Cas or to anyone else for that matter. Not now that he understands the exhausting nature of having to hold down a job. 

On this particular day, somewhere at the front end of a summer that looked to be only getting hotter and stickier by the day, Dean comes home absolutely wiped. He's taken to riding an old bike he found in the garage on the days he can't score a ride to work from Gabriel, of which today was one. And, in case you didn't know, California could get pretty freaking hot in the summer. So suffice to say by the time he walks through the door, he's sweating in a way that is totally unattractive and panting his brains out. 

So he goes into Cas’ room and flops down onto the bed, closing his eyes and letting his mind go blank. He presses his face against the pillow, sniffing against the material and letting himself get nice and comfortable. He could fall asleep like this, probably. A nap wouldn’t kill him, and he doesn’t have anything going on tonight. Not that he normally has much going on, on any given night. 

“Oh. Dean.”

He sits up and turns over to face the doorway, where Castiel stands leaning against the doorframe. He isn’t tense or nervous like he used to be so much around Dean. If he’d been alone in a bedroom with Dean two months ago, he probably would have been wearing a chastity belt or something. 

“Sorry," he says, perfectly natural except for a little tinge of pink on his cheeks, "I didn’t know you were in here.”

A lot has changed lately, and Dean is glad for it. Cas, for one, has been _way_ better. He’s more relaxed and seems happier, which seems to have an effect on the rest of the house. Gabe is less of an intolerable asshole, and Dean can feel himself breathing easier. 

Dean rubs a knuckle at his eyeball, but doesn’t make a move to get off the bed. “I was just trying to get some shut eye. But I can get out if you need the room.”

He pauses at the end of his sentence and then raises his eyebrows, as if to say that he can do it, but he doesn’t necessarily want to. Cas laughs and waves him off, stepping into the room. 

“No, that’s alright. I was just going to get changed for a run,” he responds while crossing the room to his dresser. He goes to a drawer and pulls out several pieces of black spandex. “Tell me about your day.”

Dean lies back down against the pillow and sighs contentedly.  “Long. Busy. Hot. Nothing special. Hey, have you heard back from Gabe’s doctor friend?”

Cas stretches and peels his long-sleeved work shirt off of his torso before turning around to answer Dean.“No, not yet.”

That’s disappointing. Gabe had said he knew a guy who would get his hands on something for Dean, something that could help him avoid another heat and tone down his scent, so he could think about going back to school. Which is something he'd like to do...

But it's not what's principally occupying his mind in this moment. His focus is pulled away by the realization that he’s definitely never seen Castiel’s uncovered skin before. Which seems weird, and he wonders how that could be true. Three guys living in the same house together, and he’s never seen Castiel coming out of the shower or in the middle of changing outfits before. 

But he knows it must be true because the way he feels now, upon catching a glimpse of Cas’ unclothed back, is an entirely new feeling. 

His eyes focus in on the sharp lines of Castiel’s shoulder blades. They jut out from between firm muscles- and Dean had always kind of figured that Cas was scrawny underneath his clothes, but he’s finding out right now that that’s not true at all. He's kind of built, actually, like _jacked_.  Dean wonders if he’d ever have a body like that some day. Is it an alpha thing, to be so toned, so sleek, or is it just a Cas thing? Does Dean even have a chance with his programming? Probably doesn't matter, since no one would even want an omega who isn’t slim and delicate, anyway. 

A tight running shirt slides onto Castiel’s chest, blocking Dean’s view. Dean blinks his eyes rapidly, gives his head a shake and asks himself- not for the first time- what the hell is wrong with him. 

Castiel turns around then, a wide grin spread across the lower half of his face. “But I’m sure we’ll have something figured out soon,” he tells Dean confidently. “Before September, at the very least.”

Dean makes a noise of noncommittal agreement and they leave it at that. Cas hold up a pair of dark-colored running shorts and nods towards the door. “I’m just gonna go…”

“Yeah, go ‘head,” Dean waves him off. Because it’s not his business where Cas goes. And he certainly doesn’t want him changing into short-shorts in the room with Dean right there.

So Dean turns back over to face the window and closes his eyes to go back to sleep. He makes a solid effort to empty his mind, to think of nothing but the warm spots on his skin where it’s grazed by the afternoon sun. But he’s willing to admit that some part of his brain remains actively focused on his surroundings, enough to notice that Cas doesn’t come back into the room, and to listen for the sound of a door closing downstairs to mark his exit. Dean physically relaxes at that, the sensation of being left alone, and it doesn’t take long before he feels himself sinking into the perfection of a peaceful siesta. 

When his eyes open again, he can feel a presence in the room with him. Assuming that it’s Cas, he takes his time in coming back to reality, stretching out his bones and cuddling in

“Good morning, princess.”

Dean bolts up in a shock. His darts dart to the door, where it's a much smaller, stalkier frame leaning against the molding. He sighs into his hand. “Jesus, Gabe. Don’t sneak up on someone like that.”

Gabriel acts as if he's a babysitter who's just roused his charge from afternoon naptime. “Aw. He’s like a frightened little squirrel when he wakes up.”

Dean chooses to pointedly ignore that, “What’d you want, anyway?”

“Cassie made dinner. Fajitas,” Gabe tells him plainly. It seems as if that's all there is to say, but then Gabe leans himself against the wall as gestures vaguely with one hand, asking through pursed lips,“Is this a thing we’re doing now? Taking little cat naps in my brother’s room?”

Dean isn't dumb enough to fall for that. He sees exactly what Gabe is trying to do here, and he does not plan on engaging. He pushes himself up off the bed and smiles cheekily. “You’re welcome to give it a try, but I doubt Cas will be as welcoming towards you.”

Gabe huffs. He's annoyed not to have his curiosity sufficiently quenched, but it's sure that it won't be his last attempt. “Must be nice, being pretty. I'll bet no one says no to those emeralds you call eyes.”

A comment like that from Gabriel, a month ago, would have made Dean fly off the handle.Now, he sees it for what it is: harmless, if not a little protective. But mostly it’s an effect of the beta having absolutely no discernible trace of filter in his brain whatsoever.

“Doesn’t suck,” quips Dean, smirking. 

He feels a weird sense of pride flash over him just then. It's not big deal, just some dumb one-on-one with a beta he used to find more aggravating that he does now. But it just feels like, added up with everything, Dean can really feel how things have changed for him since he came out here. In a good way. Anyway, it makes him feel nice, even if it's kind of stupid.  

“Alright, pretty boy, _vamanos a bajo_ before my food gets cold.”

Dean rolls over to pick himself up off the mattress, and as he does he notices a pain in his stomach that jars him. He groans and lays back down, turning to Gabe and telling him, "I'm not that hungry. You guys eat without me. Just tell Cas to save me a plate."

Gabe appears to be scandalized by this, and to be fair, it is the first time he's ever seen Dean refuse a meal (like that's his fault- he's a _growing boy_ ); but he leaves well enough alone, and even manages to keep any snide comments to himself. Dean lies on his back and stares up at the ceiling for a minute, considering going back to his own room to fall asleep for the night. But he's just too comfortable here, and he likes Cas' soft pillows and the way his body sinks into the mattress, and of course, the smell. So he closes his eyes and turns over, and he doesn't even feel the minutes pass before he's asleep once more. 

 

 

That night, Dean wakes up suddenly and cries out loudly into the air. He hasn’t been having many nightmares of recent, not since he started spending more nights in Castiel’s bedroom. And that’s not what this is now, he knows. What’s ripping him out of his peaceful slumber tonight is something much more physical than that.

There’s a sharp, stabbing pain in his stomach- the same one from before, but worse, _much_ worse. So intense that he can’t stop himself fromhissing when it strikes him again and again and moaning when it settles to a subdued crampiness in between pangs. 

“Hey.” Beside him in the bed, Cas bolts up all of a sudden. “What is it? What’s going on? Are you alright?”

He’s in full-on alpha mode. Dean can see it in the way he goes rigid and immediately begins fawning over Dean, not even giving himself a second to wake up. Dean has none of his normal annoyance at being babied. He’s in too much pain and-  _ow_ , there's another stab of pain. 

“My stomach,” he grits out from between his teeth, “it hurts.”

Castiel leans over to give him a look. Not like he's a doctor or whatever, so Dean doesn't know what he thinks he can do. But he guesses Cas is older than him, so at least he might've seen this before. 

The realization makes Dean feel momentarily embarrassed. What if this is something totally normal, and he's making a big deal stink out of it like some baby? He'll admit that it's already mortifying to have someone watch him like this, rolling around and gripping his stomach like a girl with her period. If Cas thought he was being overdramatic, it would make this whole thing feel about a million times worse. 

But fuck that, because it feels like someone is running Dean’s internal organs through a shredder and that fucking hurts. 

“Here. Let me see what I can do,” Cas' smooth voice tells him a minute later.  Dean nods and presses his eyes closed. He is firmly staying on his side of the mattress, but it doesn't matter because he can feel Castiel coming into his space and hovering over his body in a way that is so familiar it's almost intimate. 

Then feels Castiel get up off the bed and hears the sound of his footsteps padding across the floor. 

“What kind of pain is it?”

“It’s…. ah, fuck," Dean tries to get the words out as best he can. "It’s like… intense. Stabby. And kind of like a…” He trails off, but still he can feel the heat covering his face. He should just go back to sleep. Swallow a handful of Advil and call it a night. 

From across the room, Cas prods him gently. “Like a what, Dean?”

Ugh. He doesn't want to say it. “...like a cramp,” he finally admits, and immediately hates the way it comes out. Cramps is what girls complain of when they're on their period. It's what his dad used to say to him, whenever he'd complain that he was starting to feel sick. He'd ask Dean if he needed a Midol, or if he could man up and deal with it on his own. It makes a fresh shame burn on his face thinking back on it. 

If Cas draws the same conclusion from Dean's confession, he doesn't show it. “Okay. A cramp. That I can fix.” He marches out into the hall with determination, and returns a minute later, moving this way and that way like someone's lit a fire under his ass.“I’m gonna give you these pills. There you go. And thenI’m going to get you a hot water pack. Here, lie like this, it will help. Okay. Be right back.”

Dean spends the next few minutes just laying there on his side, knees tucked up toward his chest, feeling helpless. Even more so than normal. He hopes to God that whatever this is will be gone by the morning. 

Cas comes back a few minutes later with something in his hands. He approaches Dean and without saying anything, removes Dean’s arms from around his own stomach and places the water pack there. He does it gently, his eyebrows furrowed in concentration and his lips pursed in thought, but it strikes Dean as odd nonetheless. Normally Cas is all about asking for permission and letting Dean know that just because he’s got a knot doesn’t mean he has any authority over Dean, or anyone else. But here he is now, taking charge and overseeing Dean’s care without so much as an explanation. 

While Dean ponders this, he holds the warm bag of water tight against his stomach, and he's surprised to find that he feels a degree of relief from it. He tries to close his eyes again and force himself into relaxation. If he can fall asleep, then he can hopefully wake up and try to forget that this weird night ever happened, that he ever felt so helpless and small in front of another person like this. 

He registers Castiel’s weight sinking onto the other side of the bed, but distantly. He’s too caught up in the tightness in his muscles, and then after a few moments, on the warmth of the water pack against his body. It does help, and he feels a sleepy, but nonetheless deep, gratitude to Castiel for giving it to him. 

“Is this alright?” Cas' voice asks softly. 

It takes Dean a second to realize what he’s talking about. He notices now the gentle touch on his back of a hand moving in a soothing, rhythmic pattern over his t-shirt. It moves in circles and figures eights, and it's so hypnotizing in the way it calms him that he hadn't even registered it. It's familiar, the movement of his hand- just like the way Dean's mom used to do when he was little and couldn't get to sleep. Except that Castiel's hands are stronger, larger, but Dean doesn't mind the difference terribly. He decides not to fight anything, to let himself be pet like he's basically a kitten, and he falls into sleep listening to the sound of his own voice turning from pain into relaxation. 

 

 

In the morning, he's shaken awake, only as roughly as necessary, and finds his face only inches from Castiel's shining azure eyes. Dean gasps, surprised at the proximity, and then blinks several times in a row in an attempt to clear the sleep from his eyes. Castiel looks sheepish but determined, ready to continue his position as caretaker if Dean is still in need. Accordingly, he inquires as to Dean's condition. 

It’s much the same, but Dean thinks he'll survive the morning, and he'll do it better if he's alone. He thinks back to last night, to Castiel's hand sliding up and down his back, while Dean laid there like a helpless lump. It makes his stomach hurt in a different kind of way, so he tells Cas that he'll be okay on his own. 

“I’m, uh,” he tries for it to come out without groaning, but fails, “I’m gonna call out of work. I’ll just sleep it off, and then I’ll… feel better.” He has to pause in the middle of his sentence to stop himself from yelping at another stabbing pain low in his gut. 

Cas is gazing at him skeptically from where he stands on the threshold of the bedroom. From the looks of it, he isn’t sure whether to take Dean at his word or press him further. But he must decide not to press his luck, because after a minute he pushes himself off the doorway and says, “If you say so. I’ll leave you to rest then. But if you need anything- _anything,_ okay? You feel worse or you need medicine or you just… You call me and I’ll be here in a minute. Got it?”

Dean tells him that he’s got it and after a few more minutes of fawning, Cas manages to leave for work. 

For a little while Dean lies there in bed (Cas’ bed) with his hot water pack and he can't stop thinking about those hands. It had felt better than Dean was comfortable admitting, or comfortable feeling for that matter. He should have stopped him, or tried, but Dean thinks looking back... that he didn't even want to. 

Weirdly, somewhat, it feels almost kind of nice to have someone who wants to take care of him when he’s like this. It's... it's like how he used to feel when he was a kid and his mom would hug him, or his dad would... well, Dean didn't know what his dad had done to make him feel protected. But he had, Dean was sure. And since he won’t be getting whatever that was anytime soon- this is alright. 

He wants to shower, to wash some of the cold sweat off of his skin and see if it helps at all, but he can’t seem to get himself out of bed. The water in his pack gone cold, and he can’t bring himself to care enough to do anything about it. He pops a few more pills and hopes for the best, though he doesn’t see any sign of getting better.

He doesn’t feel the time passing, drifting in and out of consciousness. But hours must have passed by the time that he’s woken up roughly, hands on his skin too hot shaking him back into the land of the living. 

“Dean. Dean!”

“Huh?” he groans, even though his slack mouth feels unable to move. His cheek is wet, and warm. Where did that come from? 

“You’re burning up. Did you take any more pills?”

Dean can see through the haze that it's Cas whose face is in his (again). But he'd recognized the smell ever before he opened his eyes. “Pills? Uh. Yeah. Gimme pill.”

He reaches out hand without thinking and Castiel takes it. He rubs his, and Dean can feel how tense he is. Why is he tense? Dean doesn't want that. He should do something to help him relax. 

“Dean?" Cas asks, "Can you stand up? You’re going to the doctor.”

Dean moans in pain, but he attempts to make it a sound of protest. “It’s not that bad,” he argues, despite how weak his voice sounds. He's coming slowly back into consciousness, but it's only making him more aware of how hot he is all over and how foggy his brain feels. 

“Yes, it is,” Cas tells him, in a way that sounds like there isn’t really any room for fighting. “And if I have to watch you like this for one more minute, I’ll go insane.”

He hates giving in so easily, especially when Cas is using his Alpha voice. But he’s in a weakened state. He’s easy pickings. So he goes along easily enough. He rises out of bed slowly while Cas is on the phone trying to reach someone. He moves slowly, very slowly, through the process of getting dressed, but he does it- and without any help, though Cas had offered multiple times. 

When they walk through kitchen on the way out the door, Gabriel makes some comment about and Dean thinks he hears something about prints (?), but Cas snaps at him before Dean can figure out what the hell he’s getting to get at. 

Cas’ regular doctor isn’t available short notice, so they end up having to go to an urgent care facility. Castiel explains this in great detail to Dean, who couldn’t possibly care less, but keeps his mouth shut in any case. He’s never been to an urgent care whatever, and he wouldn’t be going now if he could help it. Doctors’ offices freak him out. But he is too tired to protest; and anyways, he’s afraid that Cas would win. 

They spend a long time in the waiting room, with Dean miserable every second of it. It’s crowded and noisy, with all different kinds of people and all different kinds of maladies. There’s little kids crying and old people breathing funny. Dean is fidgety, uncomfortable, bouncing in his seat. He looks down at Cas’ hand remembers how it felt on him, and something in him itches to reach out and grab it, but luckily he holds himself back.

Being sick is making him go crazy. Dean wants this to be over as soon as possible. 

Finally, they’re lead into a cramped little exam room, and Dean sits down on a table covered in crinkly paper and hates his life. At the end of the table, he sees the little foot holds he’s seen on TV used in gynecology exams. He swallows loudly and hates his life twice as much as he did this morning. 

Castiel is seated in an uncomfortable-looking chair a few feet away. He’s staring at Dean, looking grumpy, but in a soft kind of way. “You’ll feel better soon, I promise.”

“I’ll feel better the second I get out of this hellhole,” Dean mutters, rolling his eyes up to the ceiling. When he looks back, Cas is wearing a small smile. He reaches his hand out and places it on Dean’s knee, squeezing. 

Just then the door opens up and the doctor enters the room. Castiel retracts his hands and Dean shrinks into himself. 

“Alright… Dean,” the doctor greets them with his eyes still attached to his clipboard, and Dean instantly has an uneasy feeling about him. He’s an Alpha, Dean can smell it on him, even over the smell of his cheap cologne. “Some stomach pain?”

He’s too brusk, and Dean doesn’t like it, but at least it’ll get them out of here more quickly. “Yeah,” he answers. 

The doctor goes to his computer and starts typing something. “What’s going on? Ate something funny? Bug goin’ around school?”

“No.” Dean thinks about mentioning that he doesn’t go to school, but thinks better of it. 

The doctor sighs and finishes whatever he’s doing at the computer, and then finally turns to talk to his patient. “How would you describe the pain? Stabbing, constant? Nausea?”

“Sharp. Low in my belly, like… here.”

The doctor gives him an odd look and moves in closer. While he’s doing that, Castiel has the bright idea to open his mouth for the first time. “Last night, he described the pain as crampy,” he informs the man.

At that, the doctor’s face changes, and he looks over at Dean. He gives him a once over, and then goes narrows his eyes at the offending area of Dean's body. 

“You’re an omega, huh?”

The way he says it reminds Dean of being back in Kansas. Of his coach, of Lisa, his parents. He wished Cas hadn’t said anything. “Yeah,” he mumbles, embarrassed. 

“When was your last heat?”

Dean’s too busy trying not to die of mortification to remember, so Castiel steps in for him again. “About three months ago.”

The doctor turns to Castiel and appraises him. “You the alpha?”

Dean wants to die. This is somehow even worse than he expected. 

Castiel answers with a simple no, but it’s never simple and Dean wants very much for this appointment to end right this minute. 

“Where is your alpha?” The doctor presses, and he seems like he’s dubious. Like he thinks Dean is trying to pull a fast one on someone here.  He wants to scream, _I don’t have one! I don’t need one!_ but he’s too uncomfortable.

So once again it falls to Castiel to explain. “Dean’s only sixteen, he doesn’t have a mate yet.” Dean appreciates that it’s probably difficult for Castiel to talk about, and he's sorry to have to do this whole thing at all. He doesn't know why the doctor cares. Well, he does, but he thinks it's stupid. 

The doctor looks back and forth between the two of them for a minute. “There a chance you might be pregnant?”

Dean can’t help it-- he chokes on air. “No," he spits out as soon as he finds his voice again, "Definitely fucking not.”

“You sure about that?”

Jesus Christ. Does he look like some kind of slut or something? Dean bites his tongue, struggling not to be rude to the doctor, even if he thinks that he's the only one worrying about politeness. But while he's paused in his mortification, Castiel lets a low growl from beside him. A warning, directed at the only other Alpha in the room. “If he says no, then it’s no.” 

The doctor takes Castiel seriously enough to stop asking, which Dean resents, but whatever. Then he inhales a deep breath and addresses Dean again. “It’s probably a psuedo-heat. Those can happen in unmated omegas from time to time.”

Dean has had a partial heat before. This isn’t one of those, he’s sure. But he’s ready to take the diagnosis, if it’ll get him out of here sooner.

He looks to Dean pointedly. “Could mean it’s time to start thinking about finding your Alpha.”

_That_ makes Dean roll his eyes. He's supposed to go out looking for some schmuck to bite his neck when he can't even buy beer for himself yet? Can't even vote? No, thanks. That sounds like some dumb, old-timey Alpha rhetoric and Dean is not here for that. 

Cas, it seems, is equally irritated by the remark. instantly, he's standing to his feet and practically seething. “Is that your medical diagnoses? ‘Go get yourself mated and you’ll feel better’? You haven’t even run a single test. You’ve spoken to him for all of five minutes.”

Dean turns his head to look at Cas. He's arguing _against_ Dean getting mated? Isn't that what he wants? 

The doctor, if anything, appears bored by Castiel’s impassioned speech. He's probably seen a million alphas coming through this office thinking that they're tough shit, and Castiel doesn't impress him any more than the others. He speaks calmly and without inflection when he says, "I'm sure that you're perfectly aware that there are biological benefits to finding a compatible mate. The earlier the better, for most omegas." 

Castiel crosses his arms over his chest and mutters to himself. His jaw becomes clenched in a way that scares Dean, but not in a way that he minds. 

The doctor turns away from Cas, apparently having had enough of him. To Dean he sighs, "Listen, I'll write you a scrip for some low-level painkillers, if you want, but other than that there's not much I can do."

Beside him, Cas looks primed to give his unsolicited opinion one more time, so Dean steps him before he can. "Yeah. Whatever. Drug me up."

The doc scribbles something illegible on a piece of paper and hands him to him, sends them downstairs to pick up what they need. For a minute, Dean thinks maybe about asking if maybe he can find a way to give Dean the suppressants he so desperately wants. But the he thinks better of it. He doesn't like this guy, and he doubts he's the kind to want to help a poor omega out in anyway. Especially in a way that means he doesn't want to find an alpha any time soon. 

Cas grumbles the whole way down to the pharmacy window and then on the walk out to the parking garage. It's only when they're in the car that he gives any real voice to his complaints. 

"That way not okay," he says forcefully.  

Dean knows that. He's too tired and still in too much pain to feel truly agitated, but he knows that it sucks all the same. "Honestly, it could have been worse."

"Could have been--? That guy was a knothead who thought all your problems would be cured by..." Cas puffs out a curt sigh. "It was ridiculous."

His eyes are wild, and for some reason the sight of him produces something in Dean that makes him feel compelled to calm him down. Excepe that he doesn't know what to say to that. He's not used to doctors treating him like an adult, like he has a voice, and he's not used to alphas listening to what he has to say. Apart from Cas, obviously. 

"Hold on a minute." Cas pulls out his phone and starts looking for something. "I'm taking you for a second opinion."

Dean is still is pain, and if he wants very little less in the world than to see another doctor, but he thinks to himself that if it'll make Cas feel better, than it'll be worth it in the end. 

 

Cas' friend Amelia is nice. She's soft, and her house smells like tea leaves, and she listens when Dean talks to her. He cas see why Cas likes her. 

She asks Dean if he wants Cas to stay in the room, and after a short inner debate, he decides he'd like to be alone with Amelia. As soon as Cas is gone, she smiles at Dean and tells him that he made the right decision. He feels weirdly proud to have done so. It's been a while since he's done the right thing. 

She presses her fingers as gently as she can against his stomach and asks him if it hurts. It does. His skin is still sticky with sweat, but he is pretty sure that's just from the physical effort of being in pain. It sucks, it really does. But the pills are helping, kinda.  

After a while, she sits back in her chair and looks at him with a grimace. "It looks to me like what you're suffering from is a cyst."

"A cyst?"

He knew that jerkoff Alpha doctor was wrong.

"Yes. They're incredibly painful, I can't believe you were even able to be walking around so much." 

Dean grinds down on his teeth to stop himself from making a pissy remark. He should just be happy to have a doctor who listens to him. "So what can I do?" he asks gruffly. He tries to sound more grateful than he is irritated about the whole day. 

Amelia doesn't turn away or let her focus stray from her patient. It's like Dean is the only thing in the world right then. He appreciates it. "Stay off your feet for a few days," she recommends, "let yourself relax, be pampered a bit."

That shouldn't be too hard to do, Dean scoffs to himself. Cas'll insist on babying him for at least he a week, he's sure. And apparently- if last night is any indication- Dean is going to accept without complaints. Because why not. 

Dean nods. "Thanks for... thanks for helping me. I'm glad we came to see you."

She sends a warm, sunny grin his way. "Me too," she tells him, and he's sure that she means it. "I'm glad I could help. Are there any other questions you have while you're here?"

His initial response is to say no. She's done enough already- more than the other doctor, at least- and Dean is honestly ready to get back into bed with his heating pad. But, then, there is one thing that comes to mind. He scratches a hand at the back of his neck and looks over at one of the paintings on the wall of her home office.  "Do you think... do you know anyway to get me heat suppressants?"

Amelia pauses for a second. She narrows her eyes in his direction. "You said you were sixteen?"

A groan escapes before he can stop it. He moves his eyes from the picture to her face. It looks like it's time to plead. "I know. But that's why I need them, I'm supposed to be in school and I ca--"

"Whoa, whoa." She interrupts him, but not rudely. "Hold up. You don't need to explain anything to me. You might not realize this, but I'm not so much older than you. I remember very well what high school was like for an omega." Dean considers that. If she's Cas' friend, it's probably because they grew up together, which would mean she's only a few years older than him. "The only problem is, I'm an alternative healing doctor. I can't prescribe pills, even if you were old enough for them."

And just like that, Dean is hopeless, yet again. 

"But," she says, and his ears perk up, "I can offer you a tincture that has been proven to lessen effects of heat and reduce scent output."

Dean can feel his eyes practically bursting out of his head. "What? Yes. Give it to me. Give me five, give me ten."

Amelia laughs, and it's so warm Dean would like to bottle that up and take it home, too. "Why don't we start you off with one and see what you think?"

Dean agrees to that and then the young woman sets about making some sort of concoction that looks like it belongs in a cauldron. While she's stirring the mixture, and without looking at him, she poses, "While I have you, can I ask you a question? You don't have to answer, if it makes you uncomfortable."

She could ask any damn thing she wants and Dean would say yes to her right now. "Shoot."

She keeps her back to him, but somehow her body language is still open, inviting. He watches her face as she works and sees the way her eyebrows raise curiously. "Are you interested in Castiel?"

Den goes cold. He'd been feeling so good here, so comfortable in a way he hasn't really felt anywhere else in a while. He'd liked pretending that  "...what's he told you?"

"Nothing at all. It's just that I'm getting some very heavy, very distinct vibes from him. And from you.... I'm a little less sure what I'm getting."

Dean hesitates. "Are you asking as a doctor?"

"No, just as a friend." Her answer is light and earnest, and without a trace of malice. She turns toward him and frowns, embarrassed. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said anything. It was unprofessional."

"It's fine," Dean tells her with a shrug, even though fine is pretty low on the list of words to describe the way he feels.

Amelia shows him out in to the living room, where Cas is waiting, reading a book that Dean is guessing he borrowed from her bookshelf. He's smiling, looking much happier than he had after the last doctor's appointment, and asks his friends how things are looking. She tells him that diagnoses are confidential between her and her patient, but that suffice to say the other doctor had his head up his ass and that while it's nothing too serious, Dean is not to lift a finger for himself for at least the next three days. Cas smiles wider and says that shouldn't be any problem at all, and then looks to Dean, who turns away as he does to avoid meeting Cas' eye. 

In the car on the ride home, Castiel tries several times to coax conversation from Dean, asking if he likes Amelia and if he feels better now, if there's anything he wants to stop for on the way back to the house. Dean's answers as monosyllabic, venturing not further than a "yes" or a "no", and eventually Cas goes quiet, leaving Dean to stew in silence.

Which he does. He spends the whole ride in his own head, pretending not to be stuck on that one little question from Amelia at the end of the visit. He decides to focus himself, thinking about really getting into process of going back to school, now that he maybe as something that'll make him feel like he's not in danger of being humped by random alphas in the hallways. He tells himself that he'll get to work tomorrow, use Cas' laptop and start making some searches about different high schools. 

But even in his own head, he's not paying attention to himself. He's too busy chewing on his lower lip, staring over the other side of the car at Castiel's hands. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some inspiration for this chapter taken from this article: https://www.buzzfeed.com/laraparker/women-pain


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Get ready.

Dean sleeps in his own bed for a while after that. It means less actual sleep for him, and a brief return of his nightmares, but it's worth it all to have a little space for himself. Space to breathe- something which had become a little more difficult lately. 

The thought of sleeping next to Cas now, for all that he thought he'd gotten over the weirdness of it, makes his stomach do weird things and his chest feel achingly tight. Some times he thinks that he wants it, wants to return to that safe, comfy place he's carved for him that's wrapped in the smell that gives him a bone-deep calm. But then he stops himself. He remembers what Amelia said, and the words circle in his head until he feels nauseous and decides just to stay in his own bed and suffer through another sleepless night. 

Hell, even during the day it's harder. Dean catches himself all the time losing focus when Castiel is talking, his attention trailing off while his eyes trail down to one spot or another on the other man's anatomy. Not anything gross, obviously, but like.... his shoulders, or his chin, or his eyebrows. They're all so strong. There's something about it that Dean can't quite put words to... but, for whatever reason, he isn't quite as repelled as he was before. 

Not that Cas notices at all that anything is up. He's happy as a damn clam getting to take care of Dean all the time. He smiles when he brings Dean breakfast every morning and when he sits by the bedside to keep him entertained when he gets home from work. Dean jokes to him with a nervous laugh that he's not sure Castiel is above slipping something into Dean's food to keep him bedridden a little longer. Cas takes care to insist Dean that he would never, never betray his trust like that, never want to hurt him, and Dean tells him that he knows and he was just kidding and could Cas possibly lighten up a little bit? 

The next day Cas asks Dean if he'd liked his juice that morning and then tosses him a sly wink. So it would seem that he's taken Dean's suggestion to heart. 

He also makes a large effort into sanding out the rougher aspects of Gabriel's personality, for the during of Dean's quarantine inside the house.  Gabe grumbles significantly more when he's on nursing duty, but he does nonetheless fill in when Cas is out if the house. 

It’s actually made Dean develop a kind of appreciation for the guy and his weird sense of humor. He might be kind of a jerk- sometimes, but Dean is starting to see through that tough exterior to the soft and gooey center underneath- and anyway, he can be pretty funny.  There’s one morning when he comes in and tells Dean that he didn’t sleep a wink the night before, that he was out partying with some old friends who work in “the business” (and Dean doesn’t know which business that is, but he is damn curious to find out) and some of the things he describes has Dean cackling so hard it hurts his cysts. 

But for the most part, laying in bed all the time is really boring. Like, mind-numbingly, eye-rollingly boring. Even with the stuff that Cas gives him to try and fill his time, like comic books and full access to his Netflix account (which Cas only uses to watch dumb history documentaries, so all the suggestions blow hard)- Dean ends up lying there with nothing to do but sit and listen. Listen to the sounds from his window and the floorboards of the house creaking and the buzzing of the insects that never seem to leave his room. 

One day he wakes up from a nap and his ears catch the sound of something entirely different: hushed voices at the bottom of the stairs. He sits up, his interest piqued by the obvious tension, even though he knows he probably shouldn't be listening. But this is new- normally, when there’s a noise from downstairs, it’s something innocuous, like the sound of Gabe’s wrestling matches on TV or Cas making a smoothie in the blender. Dean’s come to know them all by heart now: who’s walking where, etc. This is definitely something different.

“I’m done with this, Gabe,” a low voice is saying, and it takes a second for Dean to realize that it's Castiel's, “I’m not going to see her and that’s final.”

The harshness of his voice is totally unlike Cas' typical way of talking. But still, Dean doesn’t expect Gabriel to be thrown off by the Alpha-ness of it. As a Beta, he’s practically immune to that stuff; and, as a brother, he’s probably not going to let his younger sibling tell him what to do. 

“What are you gonna do, barricade the door? It’s her house.”

Castiel snorts. “Just as much as it is mine.” That makes Dean frown. He’s never heard Cas sound so… flippant before. Pretty rude, actually. “Tell her whatever you want. I’m going to check on Dean.”

On hearing his own name, Dean realizes what he's doing- eavesdropping on some shit that is definitely not any of his business- and how rude it is. So he pulls himself back into place, his head on the pillow, facing toward the window.  He grabs one of the comics off the bed stand and flips it open to a random page, just to add a little something. 

He listens intently while Cas’ familiar footsteps trail up the stairs, sounding more agitated than normal. He tries to clear his mind, to keep his breathing steady, but his brain is racing with some many questions he didn't even know he had. Who is the “her”, the girl Cas and Gabe were fighting over? And…. this is Cas’ house? He’d said that, or at least it sounded like he did. Why wouldn't he just tell Dean that in the first place? And, if he had this whole place out here, what the hell was he doing living in middle-of-nowhere Kansas?

The sound of the door creaking open stops him in his thoughts, and he turns over to see Cas standing there by the door, looking the same as he does most days. As if nothing at all had happened. 

“Hello, Dean,” he greets, with a smile and a healty exhale. He steps into the room and approaches the bed.  “How are you feeling?”

Dean rubs at his eye to make his performance more convincing. “Good. I just woke up.”

“Not too much pain? Do you need more pills?”

Dean shakes his head. Cas takes that for what it is, and comes over to sit down in the chair beside Dean's bed. It hadn't been there before this little hospital stay, but Cas had brought it in right after they got back from Amelia's. He wanted to be able to sit with Dean, to keep him company and be able to monitor his progress.

Apparently, _he_ didn't want to lay on the hard floor like some fucking freak until he fell asleep. Go figure. 

He hadn't even asked if he could do it, he just did. It wasn't until the second day that he got this kind of shocked look on his face, and asked Dean if it was a bother, an intrusion. Dean hadn't even thought of that. He liked having Cas at his side, even if he was just sitting there while Dean reads his comics or flips channels and makes stupid remarks about whatever's on TV. 

Dean's thinking of that while he's watching Cas now. He's sitting there, silently, his head tilted down toward his chest. He wrings his wrist a couple of times. Dean wonders if he's thinking of something. Thinking of "her". 

“Hey, Cas?”

Castiel’s head jerks up, and his eyes catch the light from the setting sun outside. The expression on his face is clear and unclouded. Dean has to wonder what’s going on under there, behind his high-cheek bones and his easy smiles. How he can keep all that together when there’s so clearly something deeper going on. 

But then he chickens out. Whatever this thing is, it’s not for him to know. Even if he is sleeping in a bed in this house, which belongs to someone, and whoever that someone is is a total mystery to Dean. 

“Nothing,” he mutters, turnings his eyes back toward the comic in his lap. Even without looking, he’s sure Cas is giving him that look, the one where he sticks his bottom lips out as he frowns and his eyes turn down. Dean doesn’t want to be looked at like that, so he blurts out the first thing that comes to mind to cover his tracks. “I just wanted to say thanks, I guess, for all the stuff you did for me these past couple of days.”

It was a cover-up, sure, but it wasn't a lie. Cas has been really great to him since he's been cooped up here. He can’t imagine what it would have been like if he’d gone through this at home. His parents probably wouldn't even have taken him to see a doctor, or they would just have wrote it off as some weird male-omega thing. Or worse, they would have listened to that dumb, asshat doctor and shipped him off to get mated to the first good Alpha they could find. Or, maybe a not so good one. Dean thinks they'd be too embarrassed to even make sure.  

Cas smiles, relieved by Dean's words.  “I’m just glad that you’re feeling better. Are you ready to go back to work tomorrow?”

“Yeah, I’m actually kind of excited? Which is pretty lame,” Dean laughs to himself. He places the comic on the table beside his bed, and looks at the little bottle that sits beside the stack. “I’m excited try to Amelia’s magic potion too. Hope you won’t miss my scent too much.”

“Of course I will,” Cas says, and his smile flickers. “But I’m happy for you.”

God, how can he just do that? Just say the things in his head without even feeling any shame or embarrassment or anything? And he doesn’t even feel the need to break eye contact when he says it, and of course Dean can’t look away because that's a sign of submission and if there's one thing he'll never let himself be, it's that. 

“Have you had a chance to look at schools yet?"

Thankfully, this gives Dean the excuse to drop his gaze to the laptop where he'd been researching this morning. "Yeah. There's one in Half Moon Bay that seems nice..."

Castiel must be able to sense his hesitation, because he leans forward onto his knees and eggs him on with a gentle,  "But?"

"But," Dean sighs, "It's a bunch of rich kids who grew up in fancy mansions like these. I just feel like they'll call me on my bullshit before I even get a chance to start."

He feels an urge to wring his hands or play with the fringe of his t-shirt. It's not as if he'd been poor back in Lawrence, and he'd never felt embarrassed about it before. But that was before he came here and found out what it was like to live like this, in a house so big that no one's ever pounding on the bathroom door, screaming for you to hurry the hell up, because they've got four other ones to choose from. Dean doesn't think that he could pull off trying to pretend like that isn't weird for him. He'd wear his middle class upbringing on his sleeve, and he just knows the other kids'll see right through him.

But, he's gotta go somewhere, doesn't he?

He looks up at last to see Cas staring at him in a funny way- and not his usual funny way. His lips are in a flat line, instead of pursed, or chewing on the lower one like he normally does when he's thinking about something.

It takes Dean too long to realize that Cas isn't sitting there thinking abut something. He's offended. Cas is one of those rich kids- or at least, it seems like he is, if the new information Dean's just overheard is accurate. He's probably thinking that Dean oughta shut his mouth and be grateful--

"You are much smarter than you give yourself credit for." He says it with determination, even though he's not looking at Dean when he speaks. "And I'm sure there--" He stops, collects himself, rephrases, "I have no doubt you will find as many new friends as you want to."

Dean doesn't know about that. But if Cas says it, then at least it makes it easier to believe.

Before he can even think to respond, though, Castiel hops up out of his seat and races for the door, telling Dean that he's going to start dinner and that Gabriel will be up with a plate for him later. It feels like a pretty quick transition from hot to cold, and Dean can't tell whether Cas is still ticked off from his argument with Gabe, or if it's something he himself said that sent him running out of the room. If it was him, he's not sure how guilty he should feel. Which is just another thing to feel all kinds of confused about. 

Great. 

He wants to call Charlie to talk it out. All of it: the shit with Cas, with the house, with Gabe. But he can’t do it here, not without being overheard. So he has to wait all the way until his walk home from work the next day before he gets a chance to call her. It's eight o'clock in Kansas, and he definitely catches her when she's busy, but she takes the time to listen to him anyways. He doesn't even have to wait through any small talk before she lets him jump right into it. 

“So, we’re in this big house--”

“How big?" she cuts in excitedly, "Is it like, a mansion? McMansion? A beachside cabana?”

“Uh, it’s got like five bedrooms? And loads of bathrooms. And it’s on the beach. But it doesn’t feel huge. It’s like… homey.”

Charlie lets out a low whistle. “Damn. I need to find me a sugar mama like that.” 

Dean bristles at the idea of Cas being anything like that to him, but he shakes off the gross feeling it gives him and tells her, “Yeah, but I don’t know whose house it is. Which is weird. I mean, it’s not like I think we’re squatting or anything, but…”

“Why don’t you just ask?” 

He pauses his feet as he considers that. “Ask Castiel? No, it’d make him uncomfortable, I can tell. I don’t want to do that.” 

“Why not? Doesn’t he make you uncomfortable, like, all of the time?’

“Cas? Uncomf… No. No, he doesn’t do that. No, never.” The vehemence of his response surprises even Dean, and he pulls the phone away from his face to regard it dubiously.  

Charlie must have the same reaction, because she comes back with a very suspicious, “Okaaaaay.”

Dean's instant response in to hang up before she has time to say anything else. He's dug himself into a whole here, and he doesn't even know why he said it like that. He doesn’t want to hang up, though, because he misses his best friend and he doesn’t get to talk to her very often--

“Does that mean that he makes you feel... comfortable, then?" she asks now in a rather sly voice, "Like, all gooey and cozy and sort of like a tr-"

“Please, stop. If you love me, you will stop.”

Dean winces. Externally, not even just in his head. He can't bare to hear Charlie say it out loud. If she says it, then it might as well be true, and Dean doesn't want it to be true. 

He cringes agin when he remembers the fact that he hasn't even told her about their sleeping arrangement. And he's _not_ going to now. 

“It’s not a bad thing, you know," Charlie speaks up, all the mockery and lightness gone from her tone, "It’s not like you’re weak or small 'cus you want to let someone care about you…” 

Dean sees his opportunity to steer away from the topic, and he dives on it like a grenade. “You’re just saying that cus you’re so ga-ga over Glinda,” he tosses back and tries to add on a smirk, even if it's just for himself.

“No, I… well, yeah.”

“What’s up with you guys? Tell me what’s new. And don’t skip any of the steamy lesbian sex scenes, either.”

Charlie snickers. “You’re a pervert. But you would never believe the thing we did the other day in the locker room…” 

He spends the rest of his walk from work enjoying the colorful narrative of something that sounds straight out of a teen sex comedy. He would have found it super hot if Charlie wasn’t his best friend. But she is, so instead he feels a sort of bro-ish pride in her sexcapades. Even if it makes him reflect on his own sex life, and how lacking it has been in the past few months. 

He could change that, though, if he wanted to. He thinks back to his date with Cassie and the kiss they shared and wonders if maybe he should have given it another shot. They could have worked out, if only he'd put in more effort. 

He realizes suddenly that the voice inside his head in that moment is his dad's, and it spooks him enough to have him clear his mind for the duration of his walk back to the house. 

When he finally reaches the front door, after an extra long walk that he enjoyed thoroughly if only because it meant being out of bed, he’s sure that he’s walking in on another conversation that he’s not supposed to hear. All he hears now is Gabe’s voice, but he’s not sure this time if it’s Cas who’s on the listening end.  

“...all sixteen-year olds are idiots, so I guess it’s totally not his fault. But still, I’d rather his idiot-ness notaffect my living situation.” Dean is sure that that last sentence was about him, and he resents the overuse of the word 'idiot'. But he doesn't makes his presence known. He stays quiet and tiptoes closer to the living, wanting to hear where the rest of this is going. “I mean, you should see him sometimes. He tries to hide it, but he’s the mopiest son of a bitch I ever saw.”

Dean frowns, wondering what the hell he did to make Gabe think he was a 'mopey son of a bitch'. Sure, he hadn't exactly been all chipper when he was stuck on his bedrest or whatever, but he didn't think he came close to being mopey. 

“I’ve been trying to tell him to let go, give up on the kid while… yeah. But he’s not hearing me. Or he doesn’t wanna hear it.”

Oh. Gabe isn't talking about him anymore. He's talking about Castiel.

Gabriel keeps blabbering on, tossing in a dramatic sigh or a loud laugh every now and then, but Dean has almost totally tuned him out. If Gabe is talking so freely about him, he knows Cas must not be there. He's probably not home at all.

Gabe wants Cas to forget about Dean? Like... in general? Kick him out of the house, stop letting Dean use him whenever he wants someone to cook for him or listen to him complain?

Dean's head starts to rush and has to lean against the wall as the thoughts begin to weigh him down. When he thinks of it like that, he can't blame Gabe for wanting him gone. But- he'd have no where to go. He's out in here California and he doesn't have any money or friends or even know anyone. If they decided not to let him stay anymore, Dean would be fucked. Totally and utterly fucked. 

“Anyway," Gabe sighs contentedly to his conversation partner after a while, "Are you bringing that scrumptious pie of yours when you come?”

He can't stand here in the hallway forever. His body is weighed down physically by the panic he feels coming on, but he has to make his way upstairs so he can freak out in the privacy of his own bedroom. Why is he even so nervous right now? It was some offhand comment from Gabe, Cas probably doesn't even....

But the thought of being separated from Castiel has Dean feeling short of breath. _Oh my God, what is that?_ Why does that make his throat clench up?

Without caring whether or Gabe sees him, Dean books it from his hiding spot and goes right up the stairs and into his bedroom. He doesn't give a shit if Gabriel knows he was listening. Maybe he oughta know. Maybe he could stand to keep his damn mouth shut for a single minute, like, ever. 

Dean closes the door to his bedroom and throws himself onto the bed with all the force he can muster. He tries to remember how good, how calm he'd felt just moments ago, when he was listening to Charlie gab on about all the things going on that are making her happy. 

That's all gone now though. It's been replaced with a feeling he has never had before, at least not that he can remember. He rolls over onto his back and  tries his best to locate where the strange sensation is located in his body.

This is definitely an overreaction. He doesn't even know for sure that Gabe was talking about convincing Cas to entirely forget about Dean. Maybe he just means trying to forget him in the... romantic way. 

And that could be good. That is, isn't that what Dean's been wanting all this time? This whole thing with Cas has been so constantly present, just all the time making him feel weird or nervous or guilty, and it might be a really good thing if Cas would just drop it for a while. Give him some space. 

But, why does that make Dean’s chest feel tight? Is this some stupid, mates/bonding bullshit; that the idea of Cas forgetting about him makes his heart thump against his ribcage like this?

Plus, Cas _has_ been giving him space lately. At least, he never talks about the mates thing, if he can avoid it. And Dean's the one who always goes crawling into his bed at night. Not that that's... that's only cause he has to. Isn't it?

So how could Cas give him any more space without ignoring him completely?

Dean doesn't want that. He... he likes talking to Cas. He likes when they eat breakfast together and how Cas comes to see him first thing when he gets in from work and how Dean can talk to him about whatever pisses him off or makes him laugh or... or just whatever. 

If he wasn't doing all that stuff with Cas, who would he do it with? He can't think of any one else who seems half as appealing, not Gabe or Cassie or even Sammy--

Oh God. 

Does Dean _like_ Cas? Like, "like-him" like him?

Jesus Christ, when did that happen? Dean didn't even realize... is he _gay_? But, he likes girls so much. How could...?

His mind is swimming. He should call Charlie back, except he's too mixed up to even try and put this shit into words right now. The only thing he can focus on is the need that circling around his mind, the want to go stuff his face into Cas' pillow right now to make himself feel better. 

Dean hates being an omega. He hates it, hates it, hates it. 

He'd give anything to be a freaking beta right now. It's just... he can't start to feel this way about Cas. For, like, a million reasons, but first and fucking foremost is the fact that he's _sixteen_ years old. If Cas is his star-crossed lover or whatever, then he and Dean are supposed to be a thing forever. For ever. 

Dean can't even find a brand of deodorant he likes enough to buy twice, how the hell is he supposed to make a commitment like that just out of the blue?

So, it makes him feel like he should just keep his mouth shut, bottle this whole revelation up until he can maybe come back to it with a clear brain in around six or seven years. 

Downstairs, the front door opens, and the sound of keys clink into the bowl on the table in the hallway. Familiar, weighted footsteps trail toward the stairs, and Dean knows he is fucked already.  

As the steps climb the stairs, he reaches over and turns out the overhead light of his room. He rolls over and plays dead and when he hears his name called out from the hallway, he only bites down on his tongue to stop him from calling out. 

He skips dinner that night and pretends to be asleep when a familiar knock comes rapping at his door to check on him. 

It would be nice if he had a plan in mind, but for right now, all he can think to do is hide out in this dark room until he turns eighteen and make a break for it then. But he's already starting to get hungry, so there's no way that's gonna work. 

So, then he's stuck. Stuck in the silence with nothing but his thoughts. He listens to the sounds of the house, but nothing of significance finds it ways into his ears. No more sibling disputes, no moody music. Not so much as a shower being run to draw his attention away from the images circling over and over and over again. 

 

He waits until it’s dark, and the house has gone silent, before he sneaks out of his room and down the hall. What his plan is, he doesn’t know. He doesn’t even know why he’s bothering to sneak. He’s allowed in Castiel’s bedroom, he’s got an open invitation. But he can’t talk to Castiel right now. He just wants to look at him- just look at him, and try to make sense of all the shit going on inside his brain right now. 

So he pushes the door open as quietly as he can and takes tiny, barely audible steps across the floor. He tucks himself up under the covers slowly. 

Still, Cas rolls over onto his back and cracks one sleepy eye open in his direction. “Mm, Dean. Are you still feeling sick?”

There’s so much concern in his voice, even through the thick haze of sleep. It settles Dean, calms his worries. Hearing it does the same thing for him as lying in this bed filled with Castiel’s scent. 

He responds with a hum in the negative and then pulls the blanket up over his head to hide himself away. Cas relents easily enough, turns back over and soon enough he’s snoring in that very light way he does (which Dean has never mentioned but he’s always noticed). It’s then that Dean comes out from his hiding place, and just takes in everything about the man in front of him. He watches the way the light reflects on his skin and turns it a nice kind of blue. 

He can recall how he felt the first time he met Castiel. He was so creeped out, so ill at ease, wanted to badly for him just to leave well enough alone. Now. Well, it's just so weird to think about how they got to where they are. Where they're going- wherever that is. 

He shouldn’t be surprised when he wakes up and finds himself much too close to Castiel’s face, their bodies touching in all kind of places they shouldn’t be, never have before. He wants to move, knows he should, but his limbs suddenly feel like they’re underwater.  

Castiel's eyes blink open, and that shining blue is overwhelming Dean in a way he isn't ready for. He isn't ready. He's screaming it as himself but he's not moving. 

Cas isn't moving either. Maybe he's frozen, too. Dean can't be sure. They're still locked in on each other's eyes, and he doesn't know what's happening, but he doesn't dislike it. 

Somewhere trapped in his mind is about a thousand words that he could say. "Sorry" or "'scuse me" or "I gotta get up now", but they're all garbled into mush and nothing is coming out and he's not trying to make it. Cas looks happy. Nervous, but happy, with the edge of his lips almost just barely turned into a smile.  

And then, very suddenly and not at all, they’re kissing. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello. My life has been totally turned upside the last two months and I've been traveling a lot because of it. It;s all good things, but it's left me with very little time to write. Sorry for the long pause between updates, and thank you so much to everyone who's been sticking with me through this. Y'all are rockstars!


	8. Chapter 8

Cas’ kiss is strong. Which, probably, was to be expected. Dean’s not sure what he expected. He tries to ask himself if he’s ever imagined this moment before, but the whole thing is so _good_ he can’t get around to remembering.

Holy shit, he's _kissing_ Cas. Who is a dude. A dude he lives with, who likes to watch movies that need subtitles and eats yogurt like it's a real meal, and who's always worrying about Dean even when he doesn't have to, even when no one else in the world does...

_ Whoa. Okay. Just- shut up, brain.  _

They break contact slowly, pulling away from each other’s lips in fractions of inches, while their eyes stay closed. Dean blinks his open in one motion and looks at Cas lying next to him. 

It’s like there’s a glow around his face. His skin looks so pink and warm, his eyes pull Dean in so that his lips drift back in without his mind telling them to. Cas looks confused and overwhelmed, and like he really wants to get back to kissing Dean, so they get back to it without wasting any more time. 

Cas’ hands come to wrap around his biceps, and they’re wide and strong and a little rough. It’s intimidating, and Dean is surprised to find that the stirring it produces in his stomach is not all a bad thing. 

The kiss intensifies quickly and they migrate closer to one another, as close as they can be without wrapping their limbs around each other. Castiel pushes Dean over onto his back, which Dean lets himself be without any argument. (Why? No questions now. Thoughts come later, kissing now). He gasps at the way Castiel grips his arms but Cas kisses the sound away before it even finds the air.

It’s only when he can start to feel a certain something poking at him from Castiel’s pajama pants that he can feel the freak out starting to build. He jerks away, suddenly, like he's found himself in danger. 

When it comes, the freakout- the much-anticipated, long-stirring one- it's like a punch to the gut, and all his mental blocks break down; he can't quite get his breathing right and he sees all these words flashing in front of his eyes, and they're all a little blurry but the general theme is something along the lines of WHAT THE FUCK. Or maybe it's BIG HUGE MISTAKE. Maybe Dean needs glasses. But like, emotional glasses.

While he's doing all this, Cas pauses. He searches. His eyes are wild and definitely looking drunk on something, but he keeps a solid distance between his body and Dean's as he scours his immediate area frantically. He stops when his eyes land on a pillow, square and thick, which he reaches out for and shoves between himself and Dean, offering a comforting space of padding between.... well, between their crotches. 

"Is that okay?" he asks, his voice straining to be soft. Dean feels his heart settle in his chest when he hears the way it sounds. The panic fades, and in its place is a yearning to be as close to Cas as he can bare. He answers by grabbing his face and pulling it in for more very-good open mouthed kisses. Cas takes the lead, which is something Dean is not used to. He likes it. He likes it alot. 

They only let it go on for a few more minutes. Dean would like to spend the whole day this way, or at least a little while longer, but Cas seems pretty determined to break away. Dean resists; one, because he seems to really like having his mouth connected to Cas' as much as possible, and two, because he knows that Cas is going to want to- ugh- talk about this. 

Dean doesn't know what he is thinking. If he turns his brain back on, then all this shit becomes real, and a lot of stuff is gonna come crashing down. He might have to-

_No. Not yet. Just... chill, for a minute. Just lie here and let yourself feel good, man._

“What even…” Castiel stares at him, dumbstruck. The sun is breaking through the curtains and falling onto the covers. The fat cushion between them keeps the necessary space between them. 

“I don’t know,” Dean cuts him off in a breath. “But, maybe we can eat breakfast while we do this whole thing?”

Cas smiles. Dean’s never noticed how much he likes Cas’ smile before. “Yes. I can make you pancakes if you want.”

There must be giant heart eyes on Dean’s face. He’s in danger. That’s for sure. 

 

As he sits at the kitchen table and watches Cas go about his pancake-making business,Dean is filled with an eerie sense of calm. He doesn’t even gripe when he sees Cas using almond milk instead of the regular stuff. He’s struck by the fact that for the first time in a long time, he isn’t possessed with the urge to pack his things and run. 

The only urge he feels is to be touching Cas at all times, in any way he can. 

He thinks to himself that he might just be comfortable here. That he could make this place his new home. 

“Do you want syrup?” Cas sets a plate down in front of him. He seems just as calm as Dean feels. Why are they not more freaked out about all this?

Maybe it just feels right because it _is_ right. 

Dean manages to stop his idiotic grinning long enough to ask, “Do we have any chocolate?”

Cas laughs. “Yes, I bought you some on my last grocery trip.” He lets his hand rest on Dean’s shoulder for a split second before he turns around to go into the fridge. 

Yeah. Dean could definitely make this place a home.

He is aware though, of the weirdness of this whole thing. But it feels like a far-off thing, the voice on the end of a telephone call with especially bad reception. That old rotten feeling in his gut is conspicuously absent, and for once he isn't going to go chasing it down. 

If it feels right, then maybe it is right. For once.  

They take their breakfast sitting next to each other at the kitchen island. They pick at their pancakes silently, reserved to their own spaces. There are no secret smiles or furtive touches under the table. It's just like any other breakfast on any other morning, just... different. 

It's indescribable. But Dean can feel it in his whole body. Down to his nerves. 

Their intention is to talk about this thing. This big, important thing that came up so suddenly and definitely needs to be discussed out loud with words. But Dean can’t seem to find any words. What he’s got is pictures. He can see things in clips and images, like Cas’ fingers curled around his bicep and Cas’ teeth when he smiles and Cas’ smell mixed with his to make like a scented candle on steroids.

“You’re kidding.”

Both of their heads turn in the direction of the front door, where Gabriel stands with a perplexed expression on his face and his two hands raised almost defensively. 

“Oh. Hi, Gabe,” Castiel waves at him casually. Dean doesn’t even bother. Gabe’s entry can only prove to be an annoyance, so it’s better not to waste the energy. 

Gabe doesn’t care to be ignored, though. 

He turns the corner, the whole time with his eyes trained on the place where their arms are resting closer to one another than Dean had noticed previously. He doesn't mind it, and he's certainly not going to move on Gabe's account. 

Gabe, for his part, keeps his eyes thing and shrewd, as if one of them were plotting to whip a nunchuk at his head at any moment. 

“What… what's going on here?" He darts a finger accusingly between the two of them. "Something's up. I can smell it."

Cas looks to Dean and shrugs. Dean aims to copy his apathy, but he’s not sure he manages the feat. He knows for a fact that Gabe can't smell anything at all, but he only keeps his mouth shut for Cas' sake.  

Gabriel’s interest is no less piqued. “So, what? We're holding hands and giving each other butterfly kisses now? Is this going to be an all-the-time thing?”

“Do you ever stop to wonder if you ask too many questions?” Dean bursts out at last. Before Gabe can come up with some quip to bite back at him, he pushes his chair out from under him and groans, “I gotta pee."

He stalks off toward the downstairs bathroom without giving Gabriel the satisfaction of his turning around. He thinks he hears a snigger from Castiel behind him. He thinks it sounds a little proud. 

He doesn't actually have to pee, but he takes his time in the bathroom anyway. He's done all kinds of poking around in the bathroom between his bedroom and Castiel's, and the one at the end of the upstairs hall. It's not very good manners, but Dean had been hoping to stumble upon a pill bottle or something with a name, anything that could give him a better clue of the story behind this house. 

He does the same thing now, opening up the drawers and digging behind all the bottles of hair product and faux-scent. This is the bathroom Gabe uses as his personal one, so the wall of beauty products is pretty intense. 

The silence feels good for a few short moments, just focusing on having a task, even a dumb one, to keep his mind focused. Then he hears, a little muffled through the door, Gabe’s abnormally calm voice telling Cas, “Well, sorry to break up the love fest, but I’ve got to talk to you.”

Dean turns on the faucet and lets it run to stop himself from eavesdropping.  

When he returns to the kitchen a few minutes later, he finds Castiel leaning against the counter, looking a little deflated. He picks up when he lays eye on Dean. 

He approaches and tells Dean, “I have to go take care of something.” Which isn't vague or disconcerting at all. Dean frowns, though what he really wants to do it roll his eyes and tell Cas to stop acting so damn weird about stuff. 

"Okay," he answers instead, perfectly neutral, "whatever."

Cas looks him over for a minute, like he thinks Dean is hiding something with his words. He's not. It is whatever to him. It's not like their thing is so urgent. They can talk about it later. Castiel is a big boy and he can make his own decisions. Obviously. 

He hesitates one more minute. His lips quiver slightly and Dean thinks he's going to kiss him again, thinks he wants him too- but then Cas nods succinctly and says, "I'll be back soon," before he turns and heads out the door. 

Dean stands in the wake and tries not to feel lost. 

The house is quiet and empty, which isn’t abnormal, but the way it feels is. It’s like... like it's the first time Dean's ever noticed how big the place is. How much wide, open air flows into every room. How many corners you could get lost in. 

It makes him feel like he could drown in it, this house. His feet start to move, sweeping from room to room as his eyes draw over the surfaces of things he's never even seen before. Titles on the spines of books he never noticed before, knicks in the wooden moulding that runs 

What if this is the house he lives in for the rest of his life? What if this is it, it's all the same from here on in?

And even if he does like the house, maybe he even cares about it more than he lets on most of the time, he's never thought of himself before as still being here in a year, two years, ten years. Deep down, Dean guesses that he always figured he'd end up back in his old life, at some point. That things would go back to normal, exactly as they used to be, and he'd just look back on this as one weird summer he hiked out to California with some random Alpha. 

Cas being gone makes him feel like he’s lifted his head up from too-long playing a video game, like he’s checking back in with the real world for the first time in hours. He looks over at the kitchen island where he sat with Cas not ten minutes ago and everything he saw before is gone. 

Now when he looks, he sees an adult man and the eight years between them. He sees the rest of his life planned out for him. He sees Alpha, and warning signs, flashing red and bright.

That familiar old feeling is back, and he can feel the tightness starting in his chest. What was he thinking this morning? Why _wasn’t_ he thinking? 

Now he wants to run up to his room and pack a bag. To go find a couch to crash on, or hitch a ride out of here. He could call Charlie and have ehr help him figure something out. Use his meager earnings from the grocery store to buy a ticket to somewhere. Before he knows it, he's back in his bedroom, and he doesn't remember climbing the stairs to get there. 

 

Cas eventually finds him pacing the floor in his own room, which is still a mess from having been slept in more than normal during the past few, confusing weeks. (God, when does shit stop being confusing?) Dean stops short when he sees his tall frame leaning against the door. 

“You’re freaking out."

He speaks the words calmly, no sign of panic evident in his voice, unlike the one inside Dean's head. 

“I-- I didn’t…” Dean starts to deny it, but there's no point. “Kinda.”

He slumps a little. He stops walking and flops down onto the mattress, letting his chest expand for a good, long moment. 

Cas straightens his posture and crosses his arms over his chest. He never takes his eyes off of Dean's. But he sighs a little, saying, “We should have talked about this already this morning. I’m sorry, I think I let myself get a little caught up.”

Dean knows that he's just trying to be sweet, but for some reason his knee-jerk reaction is to feel annoyed. Big Alpha Cas, sweeping in with all the answers, ready to sit Dean down and save the day. 

Before he can stop himself, he spits out, “You know, just cus you have a knot doesn’t make you smarter than me.” And he wishes he didn't, cus he knows he doesn't mean it, but he can't do anything to keep the words inside his mouth.   
  
Cas appears a little taken aback by that, but not hurt. He pushes off of the doorframe and steps into the room. “No, it doesn’t," he agrees, "But I am a bit older than you, which means I know how to keep my calm about things like this. I don’t pack a bag every time things get a little confusing.”

Dean averts his eyes shamefully. His bag is empty at his feet, hidden behind his bed, but still. Cas knows him too well. 

The annoyance melts right out of him and he looks over at the older man. “I just… I don’t know,” he admits, trying admirably not to let his voice shake.  

“About what?” Cas asks, moving closer. Dean can tell that he is straining not to be soft with Dean. Even though Dean would kind of like that, he doesn't want to like it. And isn't that the whole problem here?

“About anything,” he says finally, tossing his hands up into the air in exasperation. “I’m dumb. I’m a dumb kid, and I don’t even know what I like or what I want or- or what you want.” _Or why I care what you want,_ he adds silently. 

Cas moves gently into the room and seats himself on the edge of the bed. “Well,” he starts, “do you think we can talk about it before you make any decisions?”

Dean rolls his eyes. "I'm not leaving."

"Are you sure about that?"

Now, for the first time all day, Dean can see a little crack in the confident facade Cas has been facing toward him all day. For just a fraction of a minute, he can see in Castiel's eyes that he really thinks Dean might take off without notice. Like he migt never see him again.

"Yeah. I'm sure." Dean feels good when he catches sight of the relief that floods into Cas' face. Which might just be why he decideds to slip in a muttered, "I... I'd miss you. Or whatever."

Castiel beams like he's never heard something that made him quite so happy before.  "I'd miss you, too. Very much so."     

Dean raises his eyes just long enough to see how glowing Cas' are before he ducks his head back down. He stands to his feet and kicks his unpacked bag back under the bed, where it belongs. 

Hiding his face behind his elbow, Cas clears his throat subtly, and the mood changes accordingly. "So, what can I-- what can _we_ do to make you feel more comfortable with this?"

He doesn't wag a finger between them, but he might as well have. Dean obviously knows what he is talking about, but he can feel the way Cas is walking on eggshells, and he feels like he's doing the same thing himself.

"We could make out some more?" Dean attempts with a laugh. It feels good to laugh. Cas lets out a small chuckle himself, though behind it his eyes sparkle gleefully. Dean thinks he can probably guess exactly how he's feeling. 

It's nice to be relaxed with each other. Normal. 

But it's also nice to know that making out is something they can expect to keep doing.

"That can definitely be arranged," Cas answers with a grin, "But first... talking is a good idea."

Dean groans, but agrees. He's the one with the big freakout after all. If he's got any problems with this whole shebang, he ought to speak now or forever hold his peace.

He drags a hand over his face and shakes his head. “Alright, fine, I just-- I’ve never. I just never knew that I might want this, you know. For, like, a million reasons.”

Cas nods. "Like the fact that I'm so ugly?"

"No, I-" Dean goes to stop him i his tracks, halting only when he picks up on the devious look on Cas' face. "You're joking. Now, you joke."

He smiles and so does Cas, and it's warm for a minute. So warm that Dean can easily see why he let himself get so wrapped up this morning. Why his fears leapt in on him like attack dogs only after Castiel had gone. 

"Like the fact that I shouldn't be an omega and I shouldn't want an alpha and I shouldn't be gay and that I'm just a fucking kid," he whispers after a moment with his eyes trained on the floor. 

A strong hand inches across the bed towards him, but stops short of touching. Cas hums inquisitively before he speaks. "Well, I know you're a kid, and you're not ready for this yet. But we don't have to do anything you don't want to. We don't even have to... do what we did this morning. We could start fresh, forget it ever happened."

Dean mutters his response. "I liked what we did this morning."

"Good," surmises Cas, "Me too. But I'm just saying, you set the pace. I am here for you, however you want me to be."

The doorbell rings loudly, punctuating Castiel's words. He pauses and then continues, "I just want you to know-"

The incessant ringing comes again. Dean rolls his eyes, the anxiety in his stomach dissipating into near nothingness.  “Jesus, Gabe can’t answer a simple door,” he jokes in the levity of the moment. 

Castiel huffs. "I suppose I'll get it," he grumbles in his typical way, "but I'm coming right back to keep talking about this."

Dean nods and watches him go. For some reason, a sense of clinginess claws inside of him watching Cas exit the room, and he leaps up to follow him into the hall and down the stairs. Jeez, his omega senses are really going kind of crazy of late. 

_Dumb alpha's fault_ , Dean thinks to himself with a broken grin. 

His feet stay planted halfway up the stairs as he watches Cas' hand reach for the door and pulls it toward him, his head tilting curiously in time with Cas' at the sight of their visitor. 

There on the front step stands a woman. She’s closer to Castiel’s age than Dean’s, and she holds a pie in her hands. He can't see the look in Cas' eyes as he faces away, but from the glint in the stranger's eye, he's not sure he has to. 

When she speaks, her voice is high and sweet, like a nursery school teacher or a local weather girl.

“Hello, Castiel.”


	9. Chapter 9

"You shouldn't be here."

The woman's smile falters at Castiel's words, but it springs back into life only seconds later. She takes it upon herself to step into the doorway. "May I?" she asks, still cheery, but doesn't listen for a response before she steps in past his awed face.

Her eyes are wide as they roam around the room, the pie still tight in her hands. It's unclear whether she's taking it all in for the first time, or reliving memories played out here before. The little tour halts suddenly when her gaze lands on Dean, frozen on the stairs, his hair still mussed from a combination of his morning makeout session and his frantic worrying later in the afternoon.

She approaches him in a way that would be almost be predatory if not for the serene look on her features, and extends a hand when she's close enough to reach him. "I didn't realize there would be anyone else in the house. Anna didn't mention you."

Suddenly, Dean's hand is being shaken though he doesn't remember offering it. His fingers are stiff and his jaw is hanging open, slack. "I... I don't know Anna," he manages, with some difficulty.

"Oh," she answers in her same voice. Her brows knit together slightly and her nose wrinkles as she sniffs the air. "Oh," she says again, more sharply, as her eyes go wide and nostrils flare. She gives Dean a quick once over that leaves him feeling more uncomfortable than he's felt in a long while in this house.

Castiel snaps out of his weird fog and rushes over to join them. "You really can't be here," he tells her urgently. "I meant everything I said to you last time, and nothing has changed- well, a lot has changed actually, but not that-"

"You disappeared, Castiel," she cuts him off, and Dean doesn't like the way Cas' name sounds when she says it, "Up and vanished. We- we were worried sick. We looked for you, you know."

The woman sounds distressed. Truly upset. And her words make more questions pop up in Dean's brain, even more than the other ones constantly circling Cas and his mysterious family and this house owned by someone else- or maybe Cas- and the woman he fights about with Gabe when he thinks Dean can't hear. Is this her? Is this the woman that causes Cas to get so uncharacteristically angry with his brother?

"Who is she?" Dean gives voice to the questions circling in his head. He turns away from Castiel and directs his question at her. "Who are you?"

The uninvited guest leans her head to the side, but it doesn't make Dean feel warm like when Cas does it. Now it makes him feel stupid and small. Childish.

"I'm Daphne. I'm Castiel's-" 

"No, don't!" Cas pounces on her- verbally, not physically. Even in this agitated state he'd never sink to anything even close to violence. But the words strike with equal force, and they make Dean look at him with a terrible, horrible feeling of anxiety in his gut.

The woman gives Castiel a pitying look, and then turns back toward Dean. "I'm Castiel's promised."

"His _what?_ "

Nothing has ever made Dean go quite so cold quite so quickly. Well, that's probably not true. This is nothing like the morning he woke up and discovered his first heat upon him in his bedroom back in Kansas, sitting there and praying that no one would hear him or smell him... but this is still pretty bad. 

Castiel's on him in an instant, climbing up the stairs and stretching out a hand to touch him. "Dean, it's not like that."

Dean slaps the hand away. Cas is instantly crestfallen, his face caught in a mask of hurt like a door's been clammed in his face. From beside them, Daphne pipes up, "Who is _he_?"

Cas turns his head to her and glares. "That's none of your business."

 _I'm his true mate, you bitch_ , is what Dean is is clawing to scream in her face, but he's sure that it's only the stupid omega part of him that's getting all territorial, so he makes that part of his brain just shut off for now. Again.

In reality, he doesn't want to touch Cas with a ten-foot pole right now. Certainly doesn't want to claim him, not in any immediate way and definitely not in some lifetime soulmate kind of way. 

"I... don't want to be here right now."

He backs slowly away from Cas' still outstretched fingers, and then turns and books it up the steps until he hits the landing hard and bolts into his room. The image of the backpack sitting empty, unused under the bed flashes in front of his mind. But he goes into his closet and retrieves only his running shoes. Just a bit of fresh air now. He can come back to other ideas later.

The sound of careful footsteps padding up the stairs echoes in the hallway.

"Dean, I need you to listen to me."

"Don't use your alpha voice on me right now," Dean hisses. There's so many things bubbling under the service of his skin that it's hard to tell which one is winning out right now. But at least with anger, he doesn't feel like he wants to vomit all over his shoes. He laces them up angrily without taking his eyes off of the ground. "If you wanted me to listen, you should have told me about this before. Before your _fiancée_ came to the house and looked me in the freakin' face."

"I-I didn't..." Cas runs a hand through his already crazy hair. He's frazzled. Moreso than Dean has ever seen him. Not that he's going to give a shit either way, because honestly, Cas can go screw himself right now. 

Yeah, that feels good. Screw Cas. Screw him and his dumb alpha ass, lying and making him feel so stupid. Just when he thought that maybe, really, that his life might turn out okay for like a minute.  

Cas shakes his head and gets that old determination back in his eyes. "Let me explain now. I'll tell you everything, I promise."

"Save your breath for Daphne," snorts Dean dismissively as he goes to exit the the room. He jumps down the stairs two at the time and then beelines for the door, passing right by the dark-haired woman still innocently clutching her pie without sparing a glance. 

"Nice to meet you," he tells her, because he can't stop himself, that's how he was raised. A memory of his mother catches in his mind, and the thought of her face makes air catch in his throat. Of course, his fucked-up brain would only find more ways to drag him down right now. Of fucking course. 

But at last he does reach the door, and he's ready to go and plop himself down on the beach or maybe find some hole in the sand to bury himself in until he doesn't have to come back into this mess. As the door swings open though, there's another figure standing there on the porch. A woman, around the same age as Daphne and Castiel, with red hair so bright it makes Dean think of Charlie instantly. 

"Hello, there," she greets him pleasantly, a big smile plastered on her face. 

"Jesus Christ," Dean whispers to himself, and then yells back into the house, "How many fiancées do you have?"

The woman laughs and steps in. "Oh, no. I'm not engaged to anyone here. I'm Anna." 

She extends a hand and Dean stares at it, puzzled. He wonders if he's supposed to know who she is. 

His curiosity doesn't need to last for long, though. "I'm Castiel's sister."

Stomach acid rises in Dean's throat. "Great," he hisses under his breath, "another member of their demented clan."

Anna either doesn't hear him or doesn't care. She steps into the house, invading Dean's space with an air of presumption. A tepid smile sits on her face. She isn't the lest bit uncomfortable. "You must be Dean," she says, offering a handshake that Dean has no interest in taking. 

"Yes," is his terse answer. He goes to try and step around her, but unluckily for him, Cas manages to catch up to him just at that very moment. 

"Dean, please don't go, I-" The look that comes over Castiel's face when he lays sight on Anna is like something straight out of a soap opera. Or maybe a horror movie. His voice changes tone again and he tells her lowly, "You can get right the hell out."

"Of my own house? No, I think I'll stay." Anna takes another dramatic step in, and it seems like she's taunting him. "It is awful nice to see you, Castiel. Four years goes by more quickly than it seems, doesn't it?"

Castiel's hackles are rising, Dean can feel it. His scent grows thick and heady, so much that it makes Dean feel a little lightheaded, overpowered. 

Of course, even eith everything else going on, Castiel would take the time to notice Dean. He reaches out to offer Dean a steady hand. Oh, is he wobbling? He hadn't noticed.

"Dean, are you okay? Come in and sit down." He turns toward the red-headed woman and spits with venom, "Anna, leave. And take her with you."

"Don't tell me what to do," Dean speaks up for himself. It's belated and weak-sounding, and it makes both of the people beside him toss him a skeptical glance. 

"Cassie, you and I have a lot of talk about. It would unfair to everyone else to let this thing simmer any longer." She stares him down for a long, hard minute. Dean's light-headedness only increases the longer she does, and he knows that Cas' alpha senses are on fire. It also has the unfortunate side of effect of producing a curious, hungry swirling in his gut that feels somewhat connected to his groin. He shifts his pants so that they sit a little looser around the crotch. 

After a weighted pause, Cas releases a charged exhale. "Fine. You can come in."

She does, of course, practically gliding across the wooden that leads from the front door toward the staircase. She looks rather unsurprised to see Daphne in there. 

The front door closes with a resounding thud, and it makes the room feel as if a great majority of the air inside has been sucked out.

"So?" Cas shrugs his shoulders aggressively at the two women. "What did you want to say to me?"

Daphne appears suddenly shy. She looks to Anna, who hesitates and then settles her gaze on Dean. "This is really a family matter, so if you don't mind."

"Stop it right there," Cas takes a firm step in front of his sister. He throws a hand out protectively in front of the young omega beside him. "Dean _is_ family."

That makes Dean jump in. "Excuse me," he bites, rather harshly, more at Castiel than anyone else. He's angry at everyone in the room, but most of his feelings are centered squarely on the man beside him. He doesn't know the other two as well as he knows Cas. He doesn't trust them the same way.

He darts his eyes between Cas, Daphne, and the surprisingly intimidating red-headed woman between them. He feels himself moving away, wanting to put as much space between them as he can. "I don't want to be a part of this family."

There's a another canyon of silence. Tension is shooting off in all directions, from the women to Cas, Cas to Dean, Dean to... everyone. Daphne seems to be determined to break it. She shakes her head, and now she looks so friendly that Dean almost wants to like her. 

"I made this for you," she smiles, pushing the pie tin toward Castiel. 

His blue eyes are shockingly angry as he levels a glare the baked good. "I don't like pie."

Her face falls. Cas' gaze lowers to the ground, as if he embarrassed by his own exclamation. But Dean's mind is still focused on the words, a weird flash of something coming over him. Is that true? It can't be, he thinks, but then he wonders if it's ever actually come up between him and Cas before.

If he doesn't like pie, then this was never going to work out anyway.  

"Well I do." He reaches across Castiel's outstretched hand, which is firmer than he expected (firm like this morning, wrapped around his arms, tucked between the sheets). He avoids eyes contact with the whole group as he declares forcefully, "I'm taking this. And I'm going to my room. Don't follow me."

Cas, obviously, doesn't listen. He jumps up and chases after him like a dog after a treat. "Please don't leave."

"Castiel," Anna says, voice low and soothing. Like a brain-washing video. "Let him go. We should sort this out between adults."

"Don't tell me what to do," Cas snaps. It's so unattractive, hearing him turn into a petulant teenager. And yeah, maybe Dean is a petulant teenager, too, but he gets to be. He's sixteen. And he doesn't have any secret fiancées he's kept hidden away the whole time, so he's not the one on trial here right now. 

For all his whining, Cas sinks back down into his seat without further argument. Dean watches him do it, frowning, and then turns for the stairs. He stomps his way up, trying to block out any stray bits of noise that might come floating up after him from the living room. He truly meant it when he said he doesn't want to have any part in this whacked-out drama.

Even if that means not having any part of Cas. For now.

He takes a seat on the edge of the bed and places the pie down next to him. It smells delicious. Damn it. Random girls trying to stake a claim to his alpha should not be able to make pie that smells liek this. 

Well, not _his_ alpha. But. You know. 

Maybe Gabe had been right. That's definitely a weird thing to think, but Dean seems to be thinking it anyway. Maybe he should have gotten out while the getting was good. Before he got all mixed up with feelings and kissing and bed-sharing and...

A bird caws loudly from outside his window and it calls Dean's attention away from his wallowing and self-pity for a minute. The blue of the sky strikes him, a comforting familiarity in it. It makes him itch to be outside, to breathe in some fresh air.

He grabs his phone from off his dresser, but leaves the pie. He rushes up to the open window and looks from the ground outside to his feet. Ground. Feet. He can't exactly make an exit from downstairs, but.... he could make that jump.

 


	10. Chapter 10

“I just feel like I should have known about this,” Dean mutters, kicking his feet deeper into the sand. “It feels really shitty having it spring up out of nowhere. Especially when he’s always yammering on about me trusting him.” 

He sighs and readjusts the cellphone against his ear. His angsty exhale is matched by another from Charlie, who’d answered on the first ring and given Dean nothing less than her full, undivided attention for the past forty minutes of nonsensical rambling.  

“Man. This whole thing is like one great big bag of _yikes_.”

Dean pouts. That’s a grave understatement if ever he heard it. He looks down at the sneakers sitting beside him. "It's like... just when I thought things could maybe be okay. I mean, I was freaking the fuck out about the whole _other_ thing like ten minutes before, and then he talks me down, and this lady shows up, and it opens up this whole can of worms."  

Charlie doesn’t answer immediately, so Dean answers his own question for her and mumbles sullenly, “Maybe it’s never gonna get easy. Maybe there’s just always gonna be another freaking thing to deal with.”

A small squeak comes from the other end of the line, followed by Charlie coughing to cover herself. “But, I mean. He’s your…. I mean, I feel like it’s supposed to be easy when you find your-”

“Yeah, that’s the other thing,” interrupts Dean forcefully, “I mean, this whole time, I’ve just been going off his word. My nose isn’t exactly up to snuff-” Charlie snickers here and Dean regrets giving her the opportunity- “so when Cas told me about the whole… true mates thing, I just bought it.” 

“I don’t follow,” Charlie tells him after a lengthy pause. 

Dean grunts. “What I’m saying is, what if it wasn’t true? What if he pulled that same thing with this Daphne lady? You should have seen the way she was looking at him, Charlie, she was like really in love.”

He feels a growl rising in his chest. He tries to stop himself from letting it out but unfortunately Charlie is a like a hawk for his most subtle changes in emotion. She catches the sound and lets out a low whistle. “Easy there. Down, boy.”

Dean closes his eyes. There's a nice breeze flowing in the air, and it strikes him momentarily how much he really likes living here. In California. With Cas. A sadness replaces the angst that threatens to fill him to the brim.  “For all I know," he sighs, "he could walked into a hundred coffee shops and told a hundred dumb omegas that they were meant to be together.”

The idea of that scene makes Dean feel down and dirty, and gives him all the regular stomach feelings he normally has when he thinks of Cas, coupled with a new, bottomless kind of pit inside. He wishes he could go home and hide out at Charlie’s. Or, that he wanted to do that. He wishes Sam had a phone, that he could call him and ask him how school was or other dumb stuff like that. That's the kind of stuff he used to do when he was feeling like shit, to try and takes his mind of his own life, his own problems. 

“Does that seem like something he’d do?” Charlie prods gently.  The poor girl. Dean feels guilty that all of their conversations lately seem to be focused on him. He's sure she's got her own problems- last time he checked in, she was worried about making enough money to keep her apartment. God, he'd totally forgotten about that. There's just been such a endless supply of drama on his end, it hasn't left him much time to focus on being a good friend. 

“I don’t know," he answers her sullenly, "I didn’t think so, but… I don’t know.” 

As if she’s a god damn mind reader, Charlie decides right at the moment to pipe up with an idea. “You know… you could always come home.”

And even though he’d just had the same thought himself, literally seconds before, saying the words out loud makes Dean pause. He knows deep down how he feels about leaving here. Just like he'd known all along about his feelings for Cas. Or thought he had, anyways. 

“My couch is always open, and maybe you could even try-”

“I’ll think about it,” Dean says dismissively, wanting her to stop talking as fast as possible. “I- I should go now. I guess I have to go back at some point.”

It hasn't been long that he's been gone from the house, barely two hours. But the temperature is hinting towards the nightly drop, and his stomach is growling from more than just weird jealousy now. 

“Okay, bud." Charlie sounds understanding, as she always does. "Good luck with everything.” 

He thanks her, and promises to keep her filled in on the situation as it develops. Jesus, the thought of any other developments makes his head spin. He grabs at his sneakers and slips them back on, already missing the soothing chill of sand between his toes as he lifts himself up to start his trek back to the house. 

He hasn’t travelled far from the house, but he takes his time in meandering back that way. His mind is like a minefield for the entire journey, no safe place to step without the risk of triggering some big emotional explosion. He tries to busy himself with mundane questions: is there still that pasta in the fridge from last night? Did he change his laundry into the dryer this morning? Does Gabe have his erotic book club tonight, or will he be home by the time Dean gets there?

Will their "guests" be there, too? 

He hates that it makes him so anxious to think of them sitting there in the living room with Cas. That he's so worried for Castiel, and for himself. It would be easier if he didn’t have to feel anything. It would be easier if he just could’ve been a fucking beta.

Right as the front porch of the house comes into view, Dean stops short. A stray thought leaps up from the minefield and explodes in glorious technicolor in the forefront of his mind, and he has to wonder: Cas _is_ on his side in all this, right? He's like the number one fan for Team Dean. There's no way he'd... what, choose Daphne? Kick him out?

If whatever happened with his family was enough to make him want to run away to Kansas, maybe it was because he was afraid he could get sucked back in if he stayed local. Dean doesn't know, he has no idea what all this is even about but... maybe he loved Daphne once. It's possible. It doesn't seem like those feelings are very active, not the way Castiel was looking at her today. But what does Dean know about love? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. 

And he's the one who made Cas come back out here! He dragged him back into all this, threatening to run away like a baby. Jesus, this is all his fault in a way. Why does he always go and pull stupid shit without thinking first? 

It's at this moment that the front door opens wide and Dean has to make himself scarce to avoid being seen. He watches from down the road as the two women exit the house together. Their heads are bowed closely in to one another and Dean tries his best to catch the expressions they're wearing. Do they look hopeful? Depressed? Dubious? Evil?

If he had to put a word on it, he'd say they both look a little frustrated. So, good. But catching sight of them at all renews the anger that had been sitting dormant in his core, and that's what's sitting on the tip of his tongue when he makes his own re-entry into the living room several minutes later. 

Before he can even go looking for him, he finds Castiel pacing the floor, fingernails between his teeth, a cellphone pressed against the side of his head that he's gripping for dear life. “Yes, sir. About five ten. Or- maybe closer to six feet, I... Sixteen. What was he wearing? I don’t- Oh.”

He spins around and sees Dean standing, sending an icy stare his way from across the room. Castiel quickly makes his apology into the phone and tells them that the situation is resolved ( _ha_ ) and ends the call, never looking away from Dean as he slips the phone back into his pocket nervously. 

"I went into your room, and I saw..." He pauses. His voice is so much different now. Shaky. He lets out a long breath. "I thought you'd really gone this time."

Dean could say any number of things about the fact that Castiel thought it fit to call the police instead of letting him have the time he needed to process the fact that someone who claims to be his soulmate is actually engaged to someone else. He could call him a possessive, knothead alpha who's no better than any of the other lugheads he claims to be so different from.

“Weird how you didn’t trust me to keep myself safe," is the biting mark he decides to go for, and he finds that it has the desired reaction on Cas' face, "I thought we were all about trusting each other now.”

The only response is Castiel pulling his lower lip into his mouth and working it nervously between his teeth.

Dean goes in for another blow. “By the way, when’s the wedding? I’d hate to miss it.”

“You have every right to be mad." Cas raises his hands in a show of surrender. "I… I kept this from you, and that was shitty of me. It was majorly shitty of me.”

“Duh,” answers Dean under his breath, the statement dripping heavily of sarcasm.

Castiel's shoulders slump further. He stares across the room at Dean, his eyes turned down and looking just about as downtrodden as Dean's ever seen them. 

“I would understand if you wanted to stay far away from me for right now," he practically croaks out, "but I would love to have the opportunity to explain myself to you.”

It’s very irritating that even right now when Dean can’t imagine being more angry, more disappointed, with anyone else in the world, that he still finds it hard to be away from Castiel. He'd like to walk away from this conversation, to sulk in his room alone, play loud music and be incredibly adolescent about the whole thing. 

But, irritatingly, he still craves Castiel's scent- and now, in a rather annoying development, his touch. He misses the way Cas' hands wrapped around him when they kissed. He wishes that they could get to the end of this thing so that Dean could snuggle up next to him in bed without feeling stupid and get back to what they started this morning. And if that isn't the most surprising thing Dean's ever heard himself think, he doesn't know what is. 

All of this mental churning doesn’t turn into much in the way of actual words, so Dean ends up standing there in the front foyer silently for several long seconds. Castiel takes advantage of his hesitation to jump in and start with his defense.

"I never meant to hide anything from you," he starts, with a pinch of trepidation, "I wouldn't want to do that, not to you." He shakes his head as if to clear his mind. He smoothes his hands down the front of his shirt and exhales. " There’s just a lot of backstory behind all this, and I… I didn’t want you to get dragged down into all of that."

Dean doesn't have anything to say to that, so he stays quiet. He'd rather not spend any of his own energy trying to make Castiel think any part of this is okay with him. 

"I know that none of this is your first choice," is the next thing Castiel says, and it sounds so damn sad when he says it, that the tiniest fraction of Dean's anger reserve starts to melt away. "I know that I'm not... and I suppose I didn't want to give you any more reason to go running as far as you possibly could before I had a real chance to..."

He stops and looks to Dean with one-half of his mouth turned up into a self-deprecating copy of a smile.  "I'm sure that sounds like something out of Beauty and the Beast. As if I'm practically holding you captive and waiting for you to love me."

The use of the L word makes Dean's spine straighten immediately, but he doesn't fight the point. He sees what Castiel is saying. Even if he wishes he didn't say it.

"You didn't force me to come here," he protests, still keeping some of the grumpiness in his voice, even if it's mostly for effect by now, "I came by my own choice. And I stayed by my own choice."

Castiel sinks down onto the couch. His body moves like a deflated balloon. Dean's never seen him like this, not in all the months they've been living under the same roof. Not even with all of the times Dean rejected him, to his face. Cas is really exhausted now. Really, well and truly, down to his deepest core, tired of it all.

"So you say," he mumbles to himself, and then lifts his head again. "You don't owe me anything, Dean. Just because I think...  just because you smell like... it doesn't mean you're obligated to stay by my side. I mean, maybe my scent isn't even... 

Now, Dean grows annoyed. "You _know_ I like your scent," he pushes, because this is not the version of Cas that Dean wants to be seeing, "and I already told you that I don't want to leave because I like being around you."

"That could change. You're so young, I..."

"Yeah, a lot of stuff might change," Dean stops him before he go any further into this depressing rabbit hole. "You might keep pissing me off so much that I don't care that you smell like everything that makes me feel good-" He stops himself there, before he goes down that road he's not ready to explore. "Whatever. But I'm here now. So just... let's just do this, okay? Stop moping and just tell me everything, now, so that I don't look like an idiot the next time one of your long-lost relatives decides to drop in."

This information takes a minute for Cas to process. At the end of his thinking period, he looks relieved. Distinctly relieved.

"Alright," he says, a little dazed, blinking like he's just come out of a fog. "Are you-"

Dean glares at him with his arms crossed over his chest. If Cas can't learn to rely on the fact that Dean knows how to make a decision for himself, then they might as well give this whole thing up now. 

But there's hope, since Cas immediately backpedals as soon as he looks at Dean, and he even manages to get that kind of shy, embarrassed look about him that Dean swears he's never seen on an Alpha before in his life. 

It's those kind of looks that make him want to stay and listen.

"Okay. I see. Well, um," Castiel coughs and gestures toward the chair across from him. Dean slides onto the couch, much closer to him, and Cas' eyes go wide for a split second, but he doesn't question his luck. 

He chews on his lower lip for a moment, seeming to be caught in a fit of indecisiveness. His finger drum frantically over his knee, and then suddenly, he begins. 

“I come from… a prominent family. A long line of Alphas entrenched in those typical roles are protector, provider… My father was like that, but he was also different. Kind and understanding. Softer, I guess, than your typical alpha. That’s how he raised me to be. He had to- my mother wouldn’t have let him go raising his hackles and pulling rank every time another alpha came into radius.” He stops and chuckles to himself. “My mother was an amazing woman. Strong-headed, determined. You would have loved her, I’m quite sure.”

Dean notices the used of the past-tense. His eyes stay hard, but he sticks out his lower lip, his way of asking without pushing. 

“She died when I was a teenager. Just after I presented, actually.” There's an old scar that tinges his voice- healed, with time passed, but still present nonetheless. “My father remarried a woman, Naomi, who I never really got along with. She was far more entrenched in traditional household roles, and if you ask me, far more interested in my father’s money than anything else.”

"Okay." _This is all starting to sound straight out of a Disney movie, but yeah. I'll buy it._  

"We all lived together as a family after that: Dad, Naomi, Gabe, me, and Naomi's daughter, Anna."

"So, Anna isn't your sister. She's your step-sister?"

"Yes, but my father adopted her," Cas clarifies with a sigh. His tone has changed, where it had been a little hurt before, it now sound like he's rattling off facts with less emotion. If there's anything in his delivery, it might be frustration. "She'd been abandoned by her own father when she was a child. I don't know many of the specifics, but I hear that he ran off with a younger beta. Naomi would only talk about him as an example of a weak alpha, unable to fill his role, protect his family, stake his claim. She pushed my father into being more that kind of alpha. She brought out the side in him that my mother had worked so hard to shave away."

Dean sits up in interest. "Why did he marry her at all?" he asks, curious. It might be a dumb question, and maybe it's the kind of thing an adult would understand, but he doesn't.

Cas doesn't seem to think it's a dumb question though. He just shakes his head slowly from side to side. "I really can't say. She's very beautiful, and... I don't know. Maybe after my mother, he wanted to just go in the complete opposite direction. I know that he was very concerned about Gabriel and I have a maternal influence in our lives... I don't know. He was very changed by my mother's death."

Dean nods. He doesn't really understand, not from experience anyway. Not like his family is perfect or anything- obviously- but he had it pretty good until right before he high-tailed it out here.  

"So, when my father died, about five years ago-"

"You're an orphan?"

The second it leaves Dean's mouth, he wants to slap himself. Because what an insensitive jerk kind of thing to blurt out with in the middle of this long, personal story? 

But weirdly, Cas laughs at that.  He looks at Dean with a fondness in his eyes. Like he thinks it's _cute_ that Dean's such an idiot or something. "I suppose you could say it like that. That's now how I'd describe myself, but..." 

This news makes Dean feel overwhelmingly sad. He'd never known that Cas' parents were both gone. And the rest of his family aren't all that great either. He's never heard him talk about friends. It just... it kind of makes it seem like Dean is all he has, in a way. 

"I'm really sorry, Cas. I didn't know," he says, and now all of his anger has evaporated into thin air. Replaced with- he's not sure. Sympathy, or something.

Castiel shrugs it off. "It's alright. It's not your fault." He takes just a second to set himself back on track, and then jumps back into the story. "So, when he died, it was very important to to Naomi- and to Anna- that I carry on the good family name. That I take on all of my responsibilities as the Alpha of the family- including making a good match to picture-perfect omega. Pretty, submissive, all that."

Dean clicks his tongue loudly to cover the awkwardness on the tip of his tongue. "Enter Daphne."

Cas nods succinctly. "Of course, it didn't matter at all to them that I'd already come out two years before," he adds drily. 

Dean frowns and feels like a dumbass for the second time in a five-minute span. 

Cas is gay. Of course he is. He told him that the very first day they met.

He'd wasted all this time and energy being jealous when Castiel isn't even attracted to women. And now he knows that he didn't even choose her for himself. She was hoisted upon him like some sort of duty. 

He did choose Dean. And even if that really scares him a lot of the time... it feels nice, too. He likes being the kind of person that someone like Cas would choose. 

Anyways. Back to the matter at hand.

"So," Dean asks awkwardly, "what did you do?"

He wonders how long Cas tried to play at it. Tried to be the good son, tried to be the Alpha he knew his dad would want him to be. He might have struggled for months or years. 

"I got the hell out of here as fast as I could."

Dean huffs a laugh. "That sounds familiar."

"Yes," Cas nods with a sort of sageness to him. "You ran away from middle of nowhere, Kansas, to here, and I ran from here out to the most nowhere I could find."

Wow. The most nowhere he could find. It's a pretty scathing indictment of Lawrence, but Dean's not sure it's an unfair one. Compared to Palo Alto, Lawrence is fairly desolate. But Dean has always liked that. Still now, it feels hard to imagine spending the rest of his life somewhere besides the town he'd grown up in. 

"Well, I guess that wasn't my original plan." Castiel adjusts his response. "I didn't really have a plan when I left. I just wanted to get out of here. I had a friend living in Chicago so I went there for a while, but I wore out my welcome fast and then I took off south. I ended up finding work on a farm for a while down outside St. Louis. After that I decided to go to school and that's how I ended up in Lawrence. I'd been living there for a few years by the time I found you."

A farm? Friends in Chicago? Dean frowns, considering how much about Cas he truly doesn't know. Cas is eight years older than him, and even now, Dean only has a vague picture of the years that separate them. What had Cas been like when he was Dean's age? Had he always been like this, or has he changed and grown as he matured?

Did he always drink tea, or was that a recent development?

He takes a moment to try and compare what he does know with the idea he'd already had of Castiel in his head. It would have been easy for him to be a dumb, jockhead alpha, it sounds like. Just like Dean would have been, if he'd presented that way. 

“What about Gabe?” he asks as the question comes to him,  "Why doesn't he stick up for you?"

Cas bats a hand dismissively. “Gabe is a people pleaser. He wants to be liked by everyone, especially those who can make life easy for him. So he cozies up to Naomi and Anna and he gets to live here rent free and no he can spend his time painting miniature golf balls or whatever inane hobby strikes his fancy, instead of working for a living.”

“Even if it means selling you out?”

It's clear from the look on Cas' face that he's had this talk with himself many times. “I don’t think he quite understands what he’s doing. He’s a beta, he doesn’t have any skin in the game. And none of them believe in true mates. So they didn’t see the damage they were doing, shoving me at Daphne like that. And they don’t see what they're doing now.” He gives Dean a pointed look.  “I never meant to hide anything from you, Dean. I just didn’t… I don't quite understand fully the layers of everything that I feel about my family. I don't know about Anna or Naomi, and Gabe, he's a whole other bag of... something."

"And Daphne?" Dean squeaks out, because he has to know, he just has to. "You know how you feel about her?"

He listens to the words leave his mouth and cringes. 

Cas raises his eyes, and oh god, Dean can tell he just loves this. He's eating up the fact that Dean is actually jealous of someone else's competition for his affections. But Dean is lucky, because Cas isn't cruel. He doesn't tease Dean about this, or make him sit there and squirm while he soaks it all in. No, he quickly wipes the pleased grin off his face and returns to a more somber expression- though he does scoot just a hair closer to Dean on the sofa. 

"I never told you about her because I knew it didn't matter. I haven't thought about her for even a minute- not in months. Ever since I first saw you in that coffee shop, first smelled you... it's just you. No one else matters."

Okay. That weirdly makes Dean's heart do this thudding thing in his chest. Which is not cool. 

His cheeks are heating up and- okay, he's getting used to all this now, but it's still kind of a lot, so he stands up in order to make his exit and go somewhere that is away from here. 

Castiel stands up from the couch and blocks his path; unintentionally, maybe, but Dean still hits the firmness of his chest like a brick wall, and _ouch._   “And it’s not just your scent. At this point, I wouldn’t care if you had no scent at all, or if you smelled like rotten milk. It’s you, Dean. It’s you that I-- care about, so much.” He gets a sort of dreamy look on his face as he peers down at the omega.“It’s the look you get on your face when something small lights up your day. It's--"

“Yeah, yeah. I get it. I’m pretty great.” Dean doesn't need to be drowned with compliments from the guy. Not right now, anyway.

“You are. And I would be devastated to lose you. I can honestly say that you are the only person that I can say that about.”

This last message has strayed from the lighthearted tone Cas had when he was enjoying the feeling of Dean's jealousy. He's earnest now. He wants Dean to see how much he means this.  How much Dean means to him. 

All of which is still just a little bit too heavy for Dean today. 

“Okay.”

Cas looks desperate to say something else. His nose twitches uncomfortably. Dean wonders if he smells something in Dean’s scent, something off. But, he doesn’t look upset. He looks… needy. His fingers move too, and that’s when it clicks. He wants to touch Dean. His alpha sense is probably going crazy, not being able to get his paws on him for so long. 

“Okay?” is all he says, breathed out in a single anxious note.

“I’m really tired. I’m gonna go to bed now.” Dean heads for the stairs, the weight of his body doubling with exhaustion before his foot even hits the landing. He waits to see if any footsteps follow him, but silence remains. He turns back as he climbs onto the first step and asks, “Are you coming or not?”

Cas stiffens to attention and doesn't waste a second in hemming over the invitation. He hustles over to meet Dean in the blink of an eye and follows closely behind as Dean moves up, step by step. If he's not wrong he can definitely feel the subtle sensation of Cas’ nose sneaking up behind him and catching some of his scent from between his shoulder blades. 

Whatever. _Let the weirdo do what he wants_ , Dean thinks to himself, hiding a smile deep in the corners of his mouth. 

As he dips his body onto the mattress in Cas’ bedroom, Dean winces. He grabs at his right ankle and inspects it, trying to see if any welts of bruises have formed. None so far, but who knows what tomorrow will bring?

Jesus Christ, who does know what tomorrow will bring. He prays for an easy day, with no emotional upheavals or uninvited visitors. Maybe just some Netflix. 

“What’s wrong with your ankle?” 

“I landed on it funny when I jumped out the window.”

“You jumped out the _window_?” Cas shoots back. He sounds absolutely flabbergasted by this, like he can't believe that Dean is telling the truth. His face quickly changes, though, his brows furrowing with anger at confusion- anger which is surely directed at himself for letting this happen. 

As if Dean didn't decide to hop out of a second-story window all by himself. 

“Calm down," Dean waves him off, "I’ll be fine.”

“I’ll get you some ice."  

He'd love to stop Castiel, but the older man is much too quick for him. And anyways, Dean can see how happy it makes him. And Dean is starting to learn that when Castiel's happy, so is he.

Castiel returns with a cloth holding several frozen cubes, as promised, and takes a few minutes fussing over Dean and his barely-swollen ankle. Dean watches him and can't even bring himself to try and hide the fact that this feels good. It's definitely weird having someone who cares so much about how he's feeling all the time, but he thinks he can get used to it. Really, he can. Just so long as there's not any more crazy hoops to jump through for this thing to work.

After everything that today has put him through, Dean is bone tired. He watches silently as Castiel changes into his sleepwear and then slides underneath the covers, facing Dean. He could close his eyes and pass out right now, no question about it, but for some reason he finds himself feeling curious.  Castiel is watching him, head on the pillow gazing with Dean with those goo-goo eyes he always gives him. Quietly, Dean asks, "Hey, Cas?"

"Hmm?" 

"How did you feel when you presented?"

Castiel bristles. He's surprised by the inquiry, no doubt, but he takes a minute to think of an answer anyway. "I wasn't very happy to be honest," he admits, his voice delivering the statement without much emotion. 

Dean's mind goes to the day he woke up with his legs covered in slick, his skin raw and red and every part of his body aching. It's hard to imagine someone feeling anything less than

"Did you think you'd be an omega?"

"No, no, I knew that male omegas were-" he stops suddenly with a word on the tip of his tongue, and then changes to say, "special."

The phrasing causes Dean to roll his eyes and laugh begrudgingly at Castiel's attempt to assuage his feelings. He rustles underneath the blankets, and when he's found a comfortable position, he rests a hand lightly on the skin of Cas' forearm. Cas makes a valiant attempt not to acknowledge the contact, but the blush in his cheeks betrays him. 

"I wanted to be a beta. I wanted to fall into the background."

If that had happened, Cas' nose wouldn't be attuned to the scents of other people. Like teenagers who hide out in the corners of coffee shops because their home life has sucked so much recently. If he'd been a beta, Dean never would have met Cas, and he wouldn't be here right now. And he likes being here right now.

"I'm... kind of glad you're an alpha."

His mouth is obscured by the fluffiness of the blanket, but the smile he cracks is evident in the crinkles around his eyes. "I'm glad you're an omega."

Dean draws his hand back into himself and turns around to settle in for the night. He misses the warmth of Castiel's skin beneath his fingers, but he thinks it's maybe too much right now- it gives him away too much and it's too early to be doing that. 

Just as he closes his eyes though, he feels the weight of Castiel's hand sliding over his hip, coming to rest on the side of his thigh. It's perfectly innocent, no implication about it. Just the craving for physical contact, whatever way he can get it.

Dean sighs into his pillow and within minutes, he's fast asleep. That night, he sleeps better than he has since he's been in California. Better than he has in a long, long time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anyone have any recommendations for a Halloween ficlet? Or a story idea you'd like to see written up? Let me know!


	11. Chapter 11

Time seems to have been doing something strange ever since Dean came to California. Or, maybe it's since he met Cas. He's not sure he can pinpoint exactly what it is, but he's pretty sure that the days are chugging along at double speed out here in Palo Alto. 

Before he knows it, August is halfway gone. He's signed up for school, and he should be starting on the long task of mentally preparing himself for another sophomore year (ugh) but thing is, his brain is kind of elsewhere. 

And so are his hands. And his lips. For sure, his lips. 

Every minute that they're both at home, Dean and Castiel are together. Which they pretty much were before the Big Kiss anyway, but now it's different. 

They spend whole stretches of afternoon laying on the couch, Dean halfway lying on Cas' lap and not even freaked out about it. Sometimes they watch movies- though they can rarely agree on one- and other times they'll read books, which is a sure sign of Cas' good influence on Dean. He can't remember the last time he read a book without being assigned to. But now he kind of likes it. Cas recommended a book called _Cat's Cradle_ to him and he really dug it, so he started in on some more books by the same author, and yeah. It's cool. 

Dean also makes an effort to get around to all those questions he hasn’t asked. 

“How come you drink so much tea?”

He poses the question one day after they’ve both returned from work, and Cas enters from the kitchen with a steaming mug in hand for himself and a soda in the other for Dean. He sinks down onto the couch and groans, like he's an old man whose joints can barely stand the effort. Dean scrunches up his nose at him and Castiel purses his lips. 

“I find it soothing. I like a hot beverage. And it doesn’t have the same negative effects as coffee.”

Dean reaches for the offered drink and cracks it open in one hand. “But, that’s new, right? When you were my age you ate like crap?”

Cas hums thoughtfully and shakes his head. ”No, I think I’ve always preferred to treat my body with kindness. Five servings of fruits and veggies, all that jazz. Why do you ask?"

Dean shrugs.  “Nothing," he mutters around his soda can, "it’s just... I always thought alphas ate a certain way, you know.” 

“Maybe they do," answers Castiel, scooting just a bit closer to him on the sofa. "But I don’t.”

Dean peers at him sideways. He wonders if he’ll ever get used to this strange man beside him. 

Maybe. Maybe he will.  

Later that day, Castiel suggests raw meat and rye whiskey for dinner, and Dean knows he’s teasing him. They’re getting better at this- the teasing, the talking- the lightness of everything. Dean elbows him gently and Cas feigns as if he's been mortally wounded. 

"Shut up and go make a salad," he snorts derisively. He keeps the smile that tugs at his lips hidden to himself. 

 

 

Dean is still hesitant sometimes, and Castiel maybe even more reserved. They go in for small touches, fingers looped around each other when they sit side by side, thighs grazing against each other in bed at night. 

And kisses. So many, many kisses. 

It's like Dean's never kissed anyone before. Except that he has, but when he does it with Castiel, he just realizes how wrong he was doing it before. He almost wants to write an apology letter to all the girls he ever met up with under the bleachers during halftime.

Dean’s favorite are the ones he gets first thing in morning, when Cas’ scent is strong and heady and feels like it could embed itself right into Dean’s bones if he tried hard enough. It’s become a daily ritual: waking up with Castiel’s alarm, his eyes cracking open despite their forceful protest, stretching his arms and legs wide as if to greet the day, and then finding Castiel. First with his eyes and then with his lips. 

It’s tame, an open mouth kiss that turns into a light makeout session when Cas slides his tongue over Dean's bottom lip. But every morning Dean has now feels like it has the potential to be the best one yet, so he is definitely not complaining. 

On one particular morning at the end of summer, when Dean reaches in for this daily wake up kiss, Cas jerks away before he can reach him. His eyes shoot open and his nostrils flare as he takes in a sharp inhale. “Dean,” he whispers, and it sounds like a warning. 

Dean laughs sleepily. “What is it, you weirdo?” 

“You’re in heat.” 

Silence hangs in the air as Dean pauses thoughtfully and looks over at Castiel. Then he looks down at himself, surveying his half-clothed body under the sheets. Then back to Cas. 

“No, I’m not,” he scoffs flippantly. Cas inhales sharply. “I am not! I don’t feel anything. I’m not hot or hor-“ he cuts himself off as color rises on his neck, coughs and says, “Plus I have the tinctures from Amelia. I’m definitely not in heat.” 

Castiel leans in hesitantly and sniffs again. A shiver goes down his spine and he backs out of Dean’s space as quickly as he can. “Maybe it hasn’t started yet, but I am telling you. It’s coming.”

His warning sends Dean back so many months earlier, to when Coach Singer delivered him the new of his being unceremoniously kicked off the team. Dean ruffles when he thinks of it. His perspective may have changed in many ways, but the memory is still tinged with an air of bitterness. He clears his throat and shakes off the negativity. 

”Are you sure your nose isn’t broken?” 

Cas does his best to stay composed long enough to shoot a glare at Dean. “It isn’t. I'm- I have to... go. Shower.” 

Dean fixes him with a funny look, until he sees the awkward way Castiel is attempting to climb out of bed: legs crossed, hunched over in the middle as if he was trying to hide- 

“Oh.” 

Dean feels a warmth rising all over his body, from his toes to his cheeks, but the main concentration swirls in his belly as he watches Castiel slink out of the room in the direction of the bathroom. Normally, he has to keep a pillow between him and Cas in the morning to avoid feeling even a graze of his morning wood, or else endure some kind of swirling crisis at the start of everyday. 

But now? Dean licks his lips and sucks in a breath. 

The newness of this reaction smacks him like a roundhouse kick to the face. He knows that things are changing quickly, every day he gets more comfortable with Cas and this whole new thing they're onto but... some of the images that spring to mind shock him with how appealing they seem. 

 _Is_ he in heat? Is this what happens to him? This is the great wonder of human nature that he could expect four times a year from now until he got too wrinkled and old to even get turned on anymore?

In the next room, the shower turns on, the rushing water just barely masking the sound of a strangled moan. 

 

 

Sure enough, a few hours later finds Dean in bed, writhing uncomfortably on top of the sheets. He grips at his stomach, which is pained by cramps not unlike the ones he'd seen Amelia for in the first place. All over, it's not nearly as bad as the one heat he's had so far, but it's distressing, and it makes him feel like staying in bed until his body fixes itself. 

It also makes him feel like he wants to clamp himself onto Castiel and not let go. Only problem is, Cas won't let himself be anywhere near Dean.

"I trust myself," he'd said from the other side of the door after hopping out of bed like it was on fire that morning, "I really do. I just think... better not to tempt it."

Dean groans in annoyance. "I thought I wasn't supposed to have heats with the stuff Amelia gave me. What gives?"

Grumpiness is definitely the overall winner on the battle royale between his heat-induced emotions. He's also a little sad and he is tinged with a bit of anger- and the ebbing feeling of arousal hasn't really gone away since it first made its appearance this morning. 

"Well, I just got off the phone with her and she said that it actually just reduces symptoms and lessens your scent output."

It is true that this heat is markedly better than his last one. Dean thinks about the dumbass doctor that Cas took him to before he met Amelia for the first time. That guy would probably try to say that it was all Cas' doing that Dean's heat was diminished enough to be reasonably considered comfortable. _With the presence of a strong alpha, an omega never need fear._ A more bullshit sexist version of _love can conquer all._

"You seemed to smell me just fine," he grits lowly. 

"Well, my nose is the only one that matters to your pituitary gland," Cas points out helpfully.

What a way to throw a wet blanket on a romantic idea.  _Jeez, Cas, you sure do have a way with words_. 

"Maybe I'm a bad judge. Or too good a judge."

Dean wishes Cas would shut up for a minute. Just come in and kiss him and stop talking for a minute. He almost thinks to say as much, but a sharp cramp stops him and he yelps again. 

He can practically hear Cas wince on the other side of the door. "I'm going to go to the store to buy you some things to make you feel better. Do you have any requests?"

 _I request that you come lay next to me so that I can bury my nose in your neck._  

"Um, can you just... can you bring me an old t-shirt of yours or something?"

This is not going to be a thing that they talk about later. Even if Castiel comes back less than sixty seconds later and allows himself into the room enough to approach Dean on the bed and hand him an jersey t-shirt with his college logo on it- the one he likes to go running in- and the smile on his face is so huge and so undeniable that it looks like one big, fat unspoken I Told You So. 

He retreats back out into the hallway without incident. Dean waits until Castiel has closed the door before he holds the shirt up to his nose and sniffs it for all its worth. 

 

 

The t-shirt must do the trick, because the next thing Dean knows is that he is waking up to the sound of a light knocking on his door. It takes a moment for him to register the noise, and then after that, Castiel's face, which is being framed by the fluorescent light streaming in from the hallway. 

"That's a really good look for you."

His nose is plugged up- not quite the hack job he'd thrown together the first time he was around for Dean's heat, but still by no means an attractive accessory. 

But Cas is unperturbed by what was meant to be an insult. He looks at Dean with a trained neutrality as he shoves a bag at the omega. "Here. Some pain relievers and a heating pad. Should make things a bit more manageable for you. And also..." He reaches out to hand over two more things: a tall paper cup and a pastry bag, both emblazoned with the logo of the coffee place he'd been frequenting when they first arrived out here. He hasn't been there as much recently, mostly because he doesn't feel the screaming need to avoid the house nearly as much. But it still warms him up to see the name written on the side of his cup. "I know you prefer coffee, but a green tea will be much more soothing on your stomach, so..."

Dean opens the pastry bag and inhales deeply. "Double chocolate chip. You're the best."

Cas' lips tug up in a way like he's trying to fight it, like he doesn't want Dean to know that hearing that is the highlight of his goddamn day. And it's not the kind of direct compliment Dean is prone to giving. But whatever. Maybe it's another heat symptom. Maybe Dean turns nice. 

Eugh, if that's true then Cas is going to be so in love with Heat Dean. Regular Dean swallows and tries not to think about that. 

He looks down at the muffin and feels a sudden bubble expanding in his chest. It's just... it's not anything special, but it was really nice of Castiel to go out of his way for that. Dean can't remember the last person who wanted to do something like that for him, just to make him happy. 

"Are you alright?"

At first, Dean has no idea why Castiel would ask that. Then he notices the wetness on his cheek.  

"What the hell...."

 _Oh jeez. He's_ crying. 

He starts furiously wiping at his cheek, trying to wipe away the evidence. It's a futile effort, though. Cas has seen, and he's not going to pretend he hasn't. 

Instead, he sinks onto the mattress, down by the foot of the bed. His hand lands just beyond Dean's foot. The closeness prickles at Dean's skin. "You're just emotional from your heat," he says softly. "It's natural. Don't worry about it."

Still, Dean wishes he weren't getting all teared up over a damn muffin. "This is really fucking embarrassing," he mutters, turning his face away. A thought strikes him, and he chuckles. "But, not as embarrassing as that thing on your face."

Cas gives him a wan smile. "Look at that. Already back to your normal self." He rises from the bed and backs himself toward the door. "Rest up, Dean," he tells him with a gentleness in his voice. No authority to it- there never is. 

"Okay, Cas."

 

A mere two days of cramps, crying and cravings and Dean feels as good as new. Well, not quite. There's a sort of residual leftover, the kind that has him choosing sweatpants over jeans and very attracted to the idea of curling up in front of a good movie and drifting in and out of sleep. 

But he thinks that he should probably get out of the house before he goes insane. So, it's with that idea in mind that he comes bounding down the stairs on a Thursday afternoon. He doesn't find what he's looking for in the kitchen, so he circles the first floor until he spots Castiel in the corner of the living, hunched over at the desk beside the door that leads out onto the porch. The smell of sea salt wafts in from outside. 

Castiel picks his head up and twitches his nose. He catches sight of Dean and his face takes on a soft, easy joy. "You're looking much better," he says around a smile. 

"Yeah, I guess I'll cancel that order for a coffin now."

The grin is wiped off his face as Gabriel makes his presence known. 

"Ha ha," Dean says flatly in response to Gabe's comment. 

Dean rolls his eyes. Gabe's presence has been less frequent in the house recently, he suspects maybe due to the sudden appearance of their sister and the feelings that has stirred up, but it certainly hasn't decreased in intensity. 

"You're a real sweetheart," he mutters, barely acknowledging the beta before turning towards the desk where Castiel is working. "I was thinking of maybe going out somewhere. Do you... wanna come?"

Castiel stops writing to furrow his brows. After a minute, his face smooths. "Yes, I think I could use a little break. Where were you thinking of going?"

"Maybe to grab a coffee," shrugs Dean, "Or a tea."

And of course, Gabriel would find some way to make a mockery out of a simple walk downtown. 

"Oh my," he twirls his fat little fingers dramatically, "A coffee date. Two young lovers, venturing out on the town in hopes of romance- _ow._ "

A wadded-up ball of paper taps his head and then bounces onto the wooden floor. Gabe is left looking indignant, while Castiel doesn't even try to hide the satisfied smirk growing on his face. 

"Sorry," Cas shrugs casually, "I was aiming for the trash."

"Looks like you hit your mark," Dean retorts, very pleased with the look on Gabriel's face when he does. 

"Oh, I don't care for this. You two teaming up... this does not bode well for me."

 _Consider it payback, you two-faced weasel._  That's what Dean wants to tell him. He's not quite square with Gabe and the fact that he was part of the surprise attack with Anna and Daphne. But, it's not his place to be mad for Castiel. That's his decision to make. But Dean is still allowed to think whatever he wants, inside his own head. 

"You'll learn to cope," he directs at Gabriel, who seems genuinely surprised at the level of bite in Dean's words. If he intends to respond, he misses his chance, as Dean turns back around to Castiel and asks, "Can we go?"

"Yes," Cas answers, pushing his chair away from the desk and him self up from the seat, "let's go."

The second they step out onto the porch, Castiel catches Dean's arm and tugs him backward. He slides one hand on each side of Dean's face and pulls him in, letting their lips connect for a long, slow moment. Dean feels his eyes drift shut and he focuses on how soft Castiel lips are. Normally, Dean's mind is racing when he's kissing someone- wondering if he's doing it right, if they like it, if his hands should be somewhere different. 

When he kisses Castiel, his mind just kind of... stops. 

Cas breaks away with a small sigh and looks into Dean's eyes. His thumb strokes delicately over Dean's cheek. "I missed doing that."

Dean turns away, not having the words to respond, and too choked up to be able to make a dumb joke. But he keeps his fingers threaded through Castiel's. 

They walk to the coffee shop, because it takes longer, and it's more time they can enjoy fresh air and each other. Since it's still summer, there are still tables set up outside to allow customers to enjoy their drinks in the sunlight. 

Though, Dean realizes, it is California, so summer never really ends out here. The tables are probably year-round fixtures. He finds that strangely curious, the thought of sitting outside in mid-December enjoying a half-soy iced whatever.

Castiel sits at one of these tables while Dean goes up to the counter to order. His stomach is a mess of happy, gooey feelings and his face is like a billboard for a drowsy kind of lazy happiness. Only belatedly does he realizes who it is behind the counter, and his brain manages to catch up with his eyes just as he gets out a surprised, "Oh, hey, Cassie."

"Well, well, well. Dean Winchester." She seems to be fully amused at the situation. She quirks her hips in a way that Dean's sure he would have found sexy even a month ago. "You know, you never called."

Dean blushes furiously. "Oh, crap. I- I totally... I swear I would've, but I just-"

Cassie cuts him off with a gentle raise of her hand and laughs sweetly at his expense. "Don't even worry about it. I get it." She nods her head over to the corner of the small café. "I see what you've got going on with ol' blue eyes over there."

Dean blushes deeply. He raises a hand to the back of his neck and scratches at the hair there. This thing with Castiel, whatever it is, it's one thing when it's just the two of them, alone at home.

It's different when the rest of the world can see them, watch them. When he has to worry about whether people know what they get up to at night. 

It makes Dean's mouth go dry, and he's suddenly forgotten why he's here at all. 

"You know, he came in last week. He said you were sick, and he kept asking all about what your favorite thing was. And then he got all worried about your caffeine intake," Cassie ends with a small laugh, and Dean fidgets nervously. 

"Did you... uh, did you tell him about...?"

She cuts him off with her hand before he can even get the question out. "No way. I'm not gonna mess with a lovestruck alpha, tell him I tried to steal his boy away."   

"He's not like that." Dean's stomach is twisting a little bit, like the cramps might be back. Boy, does he regret choosing to come here

"Yeah, I can tell."    "You guys are really cute. So, you're mated, or what?"

If Dean had a drink, he would have spit it out everywhere. "Oh my God, no. No no no. I mean- what? I'm sixteen. No way..."

"Alright, alright- just curious, is all. Anyways, you're probably not here for a reunion special. What do y'all want to drink?"

He orders their beverages sheepishly with a couple of treats- because at the tail end of his heat chocolate is truly one of the greatest medicines anyone can offer and then slinks back to the table. Castiel is sitting there, staring across the street at the people there, an inquisitiveness humming in his features. 

Once he's outside in the sun, in Castiel's presence, away from the weighty pressure of prying eyes, Dean breathes significantly easier. He approaches the table and sets a paper cup down gingerly on the table in front of Castiel and then takes the seat opposite the alpha for himself.

"Whatcha watchin'?"

Castiel lifts his gaze. The sunlight sparkles on his irises and makes his skin appear to have this golden, summery glow to it. "Just people. I like thinking about them. Their stories. What they day looks like. You know?"

"Hmm."

For a while, Dean joins him in it- watching people come and go. Some together, some alone. Sometimes there's a dog or a little kid with a balloon. Some of them make Dean feel sure he knows their backstory- an old married couple or a pair of sister, or a first date. He thinks of voicing his ideas aloud to Castiel, but then he finds that he's really quite enjoying the silence. 

"You know, Cassie's at the counter," he says, out of absolutely nowhere, "The girl who I... the one I went out with that time."

Maybe he doesn't like keeping things from Castiel anymore. Maybe that's why he feels the words bursting forth, without any forethought of permission from his brain whatsoever. 

In any case, the smile only flickers on Castiel's face for a second before he answers, "Yes, I know who she is."

Cool. Cool, cool. Good good good. Dean drums his fingers along the edge of the table.

"And you're not, like, jealous, or whatever?"

Castiel's lips curl up again, in that way that makes Dean regret ever opening his mouth at all. He looks so self-satisfied, almost dubious in his pleasure. "I don't see you sleeping in her bed every night. Unless you've been jumping out of more windows once I fall asleep."

Dean throws a glance over his shoulder to see if anyone is close enough to hear them talking. 

"Don't get me wrong, Dean. I'm jealous of every person who's gotten to kiss you before I did. But, I won't waste my energy on foolish alpha territorial peacocking." Castiel brings his cup to his mouth for a long sip of his tea. And then, setting it down with a cocked eyebrow, "Were you hoping that I would?"

"Don't be dumb," Dean practically hisses. He's embarrassed and he knows that his face is showing it. 

Maybe just a _bit_ jealous would have been okay, though. It's nice to be fawned over. Now that Dean is actually letting himself enjoy it, he's not sure he'll ever get sick of it. 

But, now that he's here, in this place of awkwardness and shame, maybe he can just keep the questions focused away from himself. He grab a piece of muffin and pops it into his mouth with a forced casualness. "Um, and you? You dated a lot of people before?"

"A lot?" Castiel ponders the phrase, like he's not sure how many people would qualify as a lot. "No. A few people in my travels and in college."

Dean is surprised by the way that makes his knuckles tighten. It's a very reflexive sensation, a reaction that starts deep down in his nerves. He thinks about Castiel's falling asleep next to some other omega, brushing his fingers over someone else's cheek. He shakes his head, trying not to let the images get to him. But he can't help wondering if Castiel's eyes shined in quite the same when he looked at them.

But, he's not going to let Cas see how that all makes him feel. Right now Castiel's eyes are shining at him right now, and that's distracting enough. 

And yet. "And you... kissed them, right?"

"Yes, Dean, I kissed the people that I dated," Cas replies drily. Like the question is stupid, which is it. Dean knows that it is.

He fumbles for a few seconds, trying to cover up the little bit of vulnerability he's shown. "Yeah, but I mean- oh god, just forget it." He stuffs another, bigger piece of muffin into his mouth and chews on it for several secodns to cover up the silence that hangs between them. 

The world keeps on ticking, though. Cars whiz by down the street, people walk by, dogs wag their tongues as they trot happily down the street. 

And next to him, Cas gets the most devious smile Dean has ever seen on his face, and he refuses to turn and look his way.

"Dean?"

"Time to go." Dean stands to his feet suddenly, strong conviction in his voice, "I am ready to go home now. I would like to go." 

Cas stands, too, but slower and with a mischievous narrowing of his eyes. When Dean starts to shuffle off down the street, he follows close behind, sidling up beside the smaller omega. "Are you afraid that I'll find someone else to kiss here?"

"Stop it," Dean mutters, regretting getting himself into this. He just can't help himself. 

"You know, I'm not exactly looking right now," Cas continues teasing.

"You're not funny."

"In fact, I only have a very keen interest in kissing one person. And that person just happens to be you." 

Dean grumbles and turns away so that Castiel can't see the smile creeping up on his face. He doesn't put up any fight though when he feels Cas' hand slipping into his, and he doesn't push the Alpha away when he dives in to press a quick kiss on his cheek. 

"Okay. Let's go home," he relents at long last, his voice softening considerably. They walk together for a few moments in comfortable, blessed silence, before Cas says, "I'm just going to warn you that according to Gabriel, Dr. Sexy returns from hiatus tonight. So, I think we'll banned from the living room while he watches."

Dean purses his lips and pretends not have any kind of reaction to that. 

"That's fine," he shrugs, nonchalant. "Maybe we can hang out in your room."

Castiel mimics Dean's face, the pursed lips and the reddened cheeks. "Maybe we can."


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guys I just want you to know that not once, but twice, did I have this entire chapter typed out and ready to publish, only to have my laptop die on me suddenly. Sorry for the wait but THANK YOU for sticking with me. The end is near, I promise you all.

It isn't the first time that Dean's woken up to the angry chirp of an alarm clock breaking him out of a relatively peaceful sleep, but it is the first time that the sound has made him feel quite this feeling of dread. Anxiety and excitement and an overriding sense of grumpiness fog his vision. None of which is helped by the fact that he rolls over to reach out and touch the body he's become quite accustomed to sleeping next to, only to find empty bedsheets beside him. 

All right. No good morning kiss today, apparently. 

He grumbles his way through the morning routine: forcing himself out of bed and shuffling over to the shower, rubbing out a quick one (because, _wow_ , teenage hormones are killer), and throwing on an outfit that he tries to convince himself he didn't spend an hour deciding on last night after Cas had turned the lights out. 

He assumes that Cas must have already left for work, or else decided to go on an early morning run- which is fine, Dean doesn't care. It just would've been nice to see him for a minute before he leaves for his first day of school. But, he'll just shove a bowl of cereal in his mouth and head off for the bus. No big deal. It's just another day, anyways. 

Except that when he gets into the kitchen, he's greeted with the smell of greasy bacon crisping in a pan and his stomach flips in excitement. Castiel isn't out on a run, but posted at the stove with a spatula in hand, scrambling eggs with the radio on a low volume talking beside him. It's that boring news station he's always listening to, the one where the voices all drone on like they get paid more the more dull they sound. 

Normally the sound of it makes Dean want to bash his head against the wall, but right now Dean isn't paying attention to that. Because when Cas turns around and smiles at him, his mouth cracked into a halfway-sleepy kind of thing, it's all he can do not to crumble on the spot, from how relieved the sight of him makes Dean feel. 

"Good morning," says Cas softly, almost shyly. 

"Morning," Dean replies without moving from his spot in the doorway. His eyes drift down to the stovetop and then back up to Castiel's face. He's still tired and anxious, but he can't help a bit of a smile tugging on his lips. 

"I just thought it would be nice to make your breakfast for your first day," the alpha explains, like he needs to justify what he's doing. "A healthy breakfast is very important to brain function, you know. In terms of statistics, those who-"

He's cut off when Dean appears suddenly at his side and presses the softest of kisses onto his lips. Dean feels Cas' lips just long enough to appreciate the slightly chapped feel of them, and then he falls back onto the balls of his feet and whispers, "Thank you."

Castiel clears his throat with a cough. "You're welcome."

Then Dean turns away and goes into the cabinet where they keep the plates, grabbing two and bringing them over to the table.  Cas turns off the stove and brings the food over, and together they sit down to enjoy the meal Cas has so graciously prepared for them.

"Are you nervous?" he asks Dean, his voice quiet in the empty kitchen. 

The chair scrapes loudly across the floor when Dean pulls it out to take a seat. He hesitates over how honest to be here. "Um. Like, a little."

"About anything in particular?"

 _Alphas._ "Just... making friends."

 _Oh, and also that you're probably going to find out how stupid I am the minute I bring a piece of homework home._  

Dean pokes at his eggs and tries to figure out a way to make them seem appealing to him. Not that Cas isn’t a good cook, it’s just that the thought of any food right now sits in his stomach like a rock. He's not used to being up so early. One of many things he'll have to get used to. 

Across the table, Cas is every bit his normal carefree self. Even at seven in the morning. "Well, I'm not worried about that," he shrugs, "In fact, quite the opposite. I'm worried that you'll make too many friends, and you won't have any time left over for me."

Dean snorts. "No way." He stabs a piece of egg and takes a hearty bite. With his mouth still full, he adds, "And anyway, I've gotta sleep somewhere, right?"

"That you do." Cas nods and kicks his feet at Dean under the table. Dean kicks back and tucks into his stack of bacon, smiling around his fork. Unfortunately, it's only a few minutes later that Cas sighs and pushes back his chair, telling him, "We ought to go. You want to be on time this morning."

He doesn't put up a fight, but even as he's gathering up his things and putting them into his backpack, his mind is still trying to churn up new excuses for why he shouldn't do this. Maybe he should just give up on the whole thing. He could just be a stay-at-home omega- y'know, like a kept man?

No. What is he thinking? He's been dying to get back to school, to try and be normal and go back to the way things were. As much as he can, that is. 

So with a heavy sigh, he collects his things into his backpack and shuffles along behind Cas out to the driveway. As they pull away, he tosses a remorseful glance back at the place that has been his haven, his solace away from the outside world for all these months that he's been on this side of the country. 

Castiel does him the solid of staying quite for the duration of the drive there. Dean focuses his attention on the sun rising over the houses along the way, and the weight of his bag on his lap. 

Cas makes to drop him outside the front entrance of the school, but before he makes the final turn, Dean pipes up to ask, "Can you... stop here?"

The car slows to a stop, the brakes emitting a soft whine as it does. Cas turns to him. "You want me to drop you off at the corner?" he balks. "You're embarrassed to be seen with me?"

Oh God. Dean slaps an open-faced palm against his forehead. _Smooth move, asshole._ He tries to save himself: "No, it's just..."

But Cas, being Cas, shakes him off easily. A hand comes up to graze his chin and he lifts his eyes. Castiel's face is warm and kind, full of hope for the day. More hope that Dean feels even close to at this point. "I'm teasing you," he whispers conspiratorially, grazing a thumb over Dean's chin. "Have a good day, huh?"

"Yeah, yeah," Dean grumbles and reaches for the door handle, but Cas' hand moves to his arm and holds him back. 

"Dean," he says firmly, "I mean it. Don't stress yourself out. You're gonna do great."

Dean pauses, turning back around. His stomach is in knots and he's way not in the mood to show any affection right now. But he does let his fingers find Castiel's where they lay on his arms and he allows his shoulders to release a measure of tension. 

"Thank you," he breathes out, feeling actual relaxation settle in his lungs. Cas gives a knowing wink and then politely shoos him out of the car. Dean closes the door and turns away, bracing himself for the oncoming storm. 

There had been a time not that long ago when school was a place that Dean liked going. This time last year, he was an athlete, well-loved, surrounded by friends and on track for a future as the intimidating alpha he'd always planned to be. 

Man, how things can change. Now he all he wants is to keep his head down and get through this day without anyone taking special notice of him. 

The whole "new school" thing is its own kind of confusing for him. He's spent his entire life in the Lawrence public school system up til now. He doesn't know where anything is or who any of the staff are. He knows he's supposed to go to the office to get a copy of his schedule, but actually finding it is another story altogether. 

He does, though, eventually find the office- and an overly-enthusiastic guidance counselor named Garth who is all too excited to welcome Dean to their community. He talks for a long time about how Dean will be a welcome addition to the school, and peppers in the word "diversity" enough times for Dean to get tired of it real fast. Dean has to find a quick excuse for an exit when the guy goes into his office and returns with an honest-to-God sock puppet on his hand.  

He stumbles upon his homeroom by pure luck, practically, and it's on his way out of there, toward his first class, when a skinny blonde girl worms her way over to him and starts in on him like a target. 

"You're new."

So it begins. 

"Yeah," Dean mutters. The only suitable response to her particularly astute observation. If he's going to have to have this conversation a million times, he's not going to exhaust himself on the details. 

But this girl appears undaunted by his curtness. She falls in step beside him. "Where you from?" she asks. Her voice is like a cheerleader's, but something in it seems tough. Like if a cheerleader chewed dip, or went to a gun range on the weekends. 

"Somewhere else," says Dean, unwilling to give her more than that. 

"Aw, c'mon," she whines, with a sense of familiarity to it as if they've known each other for years. Like she were his cousin asking to borrow a toy. "I'm from Pocatello, Idaho. Moved out here when my mom's new dude got a new job."

That's enough to make Dean give her a second glance, but only for a fraction of a second. "That so?"

"Yeah. Well, ex-new dude," the girl shrugs. Her blonde hair hangs over her shoulders as they bob up and down. "She ditched the guy but decided she liked the ocean air. Now it's just the two of us."

"Huh."

They come to a split in the hallway and Dean pauses for a second to get his bearings. He hopes that the girls will be satisfied with her fact-finding mission and continue on her way, but he's got no luck there. He turns left and she follows, hot on his heels even as he speeds up his step.

"Sooo? What's your deal?" She leans in to him, increasingly curious. "You know, aside from the fact that you're-"

Dean flinches. He knows what she's going to say. She must smell it on him, the same way everyone does. Especially today with all his nerves, God he always feels like such an omega when he's even a little bit sensitive.

"-obviously a Midwestern boy."

He halts mid-step in the hallway. That... certainly wasn't what he expected her to say. "What? How can you tell?"

The girl must know she's got his number now. She smirks, crosses her arms over her chest like she's got all the time in the world. As the people flood past them on both sides of the long hallway, she nods at Dean's chest. "You've got dirty nails and your flannel's a hand-me-down. These kids around here wouldn't be caught dead in an outfit like that."

Just then, a boy comes up to join them. Looking at him, Dean has to do a double take. The kid has an actual mullet for god's sake- and did he _rip_ the sleeves off of that shirt? 

The girl eyes him much the same way she'd just been surveying Dean. "Well, except for Ash."

"Where'd he come from?" Dean shouts in disbelief. "The '80s? Or maybe a sewer?"

He can't get over this guy. 

"Greetings, friend," says the newcomer, only putting Dean more deep into confusion. Who talks like that? This guy is a real question mark, that is for sure. 

Before he can investigate any further though, the bell rings signaling the start of the next period. Dean is poised to say _thanks so much and seeya never_ to these two, but the girl interrupts by looping an arm through his and yelling loudly, "Come on, Ash, we're escorting this sweet young thing to his next class."

"But, I don't know where I'm going," protests Dean. 

"Duh. Hence the escort." She tugs him along with a surprising amount of strength, and Dean has no other option than to allow himself to be lead away. He has to admit to himself, though, that part of him likes something in this chick's attitude. There's an annoying persistence that reminds him a little of the way he used to be, before. "And just so you know. My name's Joanna Beth. But you'll be callin' me Jo by the end of the day. All my friends do."

When Cas finds him in the living room that evening, he asks how Dean's day was with that kind of genuine interest he always seems able to muscle up when it comes to Dean. "Did you make any friends?" he inquires, trying to hide the concern laying dormant beneath the words. 

Dean shifts his position on the couch and tilts his head. "Um. Yeah, I think," he says in answer, "Two. Kinda by accident."

Cas gives him a weird look, and Dean doesn't have any better explanation than that, so he doesn't explain any further. But he can be honest when he tells Cas that his day was pretty good, and that's a lot better than he thought it would be, so it's enough for him. 

 

 

Accident or not, it sticks, this new friendship that Dean’s struck. Jo and Ash become his shepherds through the process of adjusting to Half Moon Bay- and whether or not he wants to admit it, Dean could use the help. 

It’s true that the majority of students here are upper middle class in a way that makes Dean realize for the first time in his life how far in the lower end his family had been. They were always comfortable enough, sure- but these kids waved around their fancy gadgets and sporty cars the way Dean had shown off his Pokemon cards as a kid. 

So, it's nice to have at least two people with their heads set on their shoulders like Dean's is. Jo is sweet beneath her tough demeanor, and Ash... well, Dean can't quite figure him out just yet, but it's nice to have two whole friends to his name. It's two more than he thought he'd have, that's for sure. 

The California kids aren't all bad, though. Self-aware isn't a word Dean would use to describe the atmosphere of the school, especially when it comes to the massive amount of privilege each and every one of them drips with. But... they're chill. They're more laid back than people out in Kansas, that's for sure. Which, in his situation, is a plus. 

For the most part, people don’t seem to be too hung up on the labels of Alpha or Omega or whatever. People do't appear to separate based on presentation nearly as much as they did in Lawrence. In fact, he hasn't even gotten a single comment yet from a fellow student. The school nurse seems to be weirdly obsessed with him and how he's "adjusting", but she's the only one going out of her way to point out that he is what he is.

There's also the tinctures from Amelia, which are definitely helping. He can get through the school day without worrying that he reaks of "come take me, alpha". Which means that he can at least go into the bathroom without worry of being cornered up agains a wall and humped by some jerk hopped up on testosterone.

But still, every once in a while he finds himself stopping short when he passes someone in the hall, and he’ll catch a pair of eyes grazing his body head to toe, in that way that makes him want to curl in on himself and hide all his vulnerable extremities. 

Mostly, it's the football players. And Dean can’t tell whether that’s ironic or just cruel fate. But he does his best to ignore it, to avoid drawing any further unnecessary attention to himself more than the New Kid label has.

It probably has nothing to do with him, actually. It's how they look at everyone, like if they can have it then they should have it, by right. How people so dumb could get such big fuckin' heads, he has no idea. 

But even as he chuckles to himself at the thought, it doesn't little to actually comfort him. Those looks- they put him on edge, make that old feeling tickle in his throat thinking of things that almost happened in dirty alleyways not that long ago. 

Luckily, it doesn’t penetrate quite as deeply this time. For a lot of reasons, Dean feels... safer now. 

But he’s not planning on going to any football games anytime soon, either. 

“You’re not going to the game _or_ the dance?” Jo asks him in disbelief. 

It's lunch, which despite all the changes his life has gone through, is still Dean's favorite part of the school day. ”What could I possibly stand to gain from either of those?”

Jo doesn’t know about Cas. And Dean wouldn’t even know what to call him if he did tell her. But seeing as Dean isn’t exactly on the prowl right now, the Homecoming dance holds little appeal for him. Last year, it would have been exactly the kind of thing he'd relish in attending, probably pulling someone under to bleachers to share a bottle and 

Though the thought of Cas dressed up in a tux hanging out with a bunch of high school kids does make Dean’s lips quirk up at the edges. 

“Uh, friends? Good times? Classic adolescent rites of passage?”

Sometimes Jo sounds so much like Charlie it makes Dean actually feel sad. 

“Pass,” he brushes her off. 

He's been trying harder lately to let himself trust Jo. She's one of the good ones. He's pretty sure that even if they'd met in his old life, they would have gotten along. But still, he has to keep a little of his guard up. For his own sake. 

”Well, at least come to the afterparty," she presses him, practically begging, "We can get wasted and prank the jocks.” 

Dean pauses to consider the offer. “Maybe,” he grants her after a moment.  

“That’s halfway to a yes,” she grins triumphantly. Dean huffs a laughs and lets her have her small victory. 

When he brings it up, casually, totally off-the-cuff at dinner that night, Cas is weirdly into the idea. “You should go,” he nudges encouragingly, reaching across the table to scoop more brussels sprouts onto his plate. “I think it’s a great idea.” 

“A great idea?” Dean repeats. Why would Cas want him to go cavorting around with a bunch of drunken, horny teenagers?

Castiel nods and pushes the vegetables towards Dean, who pushes them right back. "Yeah. When was the last time you had fun with people your own age?”

Dean hums, reflecting back on how much fun he’s had at all the past few months. He hadn’t thought of it as being particularly little, but maybe his idea of fun has changed more than he noticed. 

Plus, it has been a good long time since he’s been drunk, especially with Cas being such a stickler for the whole “legal drinking age” thing.

”I might go," he says a minute later, "I’m not sure yet.”

From the other side of the kitchen, Gabriel cuts in and announces, ”You’ll be missing my Bi-monthly Bisexual Breakfast for Dinner." He says this as if it were something that would be at all alluring to Dean. Then he ads, with a salacious raise of the eyebrows, “We’re always looking for new members.” 

Dean ducks his head to hide the way that his cheeks have gone bright fucking lobster red at the mention of sexuality. 

He's lucky that Cas is there to save him. “More disappointing is that he’ll miss the first installment of the new docuseries about the history of the Native Americans." He turns to Dean with a mock-serious expression. "But somehow I think he’ll manage to have fun.” 

“Yeah, now I’m definitely going," Dean declares firmly as he reluctantly accepts the sprouts that Castiel has continued to push his way. "Just so I don’t have to be around for either of those things.”

 

By the time Dean gets to the house party, the day of the big Homecoming to-do, having been picked up by Ash and Jo on their way back from the dance, things are already in full swing. No bodies passed out on the lawn, but there is one boy bent over the edge of the porch heaving loudly and a heavy cloud of smoke gathering from the smokers crowded around him. 

There’s a funny feeling in Dean’s gut- a sense of familiarity coupled with a strange feeling of dread. He’s in his element and out of it at the same time. 

Well. Only one cure for that: booze. 

So he makes his way into the house and from there into the kitchen. Jo is closely at his side, though she’s been drinking since before she even got to the dance, so she’s half in the bag now and likely to wander as soon as she catches sight of something shiny. 

“D’you wanna kiss a girl?” 

Dean whips around. The words were slurred into his ear by Jo, leaning up against him for support. 

“What?” he demands brusquely. Why he's so surprised, he doesn't quite know, but he just stares at Jo, who stares right back. Behind them, Ash ambles his way through the crowd, high-fiving every person he passes, regardless if he knows them or not. 

"I’ll find you a nice beta," Jo offers, her manner nonchalant in that way that people try to play off when they know they're too drunk to actually do it, "or... an Alpha. But, I think you already have one of those.” 

This is the first reference Jo has so much as even hinted at of Dean's presentation, or of there being anyone in his life in the way that Cas is. He's shocked to hear the words come out of her mouth. But, truthfully, he shouldn't be quite so dumbfounded. Even he knows that he's pretty much the easiest person in the world to read, especially to his friends. 

Still, he splutters. “Wh- How did you know?” 

Jo’s nose twitches and her head falls to the side, curious. Dean stares at her intently, begging to her explain herself.

Her response? 

“Boop.” She cackles, poking a finger at the end of his nose. 

“Hey, m’lady!” Ash calls in his implacable hillbilly accent. “I’m in need of a pong partner.” Dean's head turns in the direction of his voice and then whips back to Jo, just in time to catch her back running away from him

He considers following her, but the conversation they've just had leaves him feeling awkward. So he decides instead to head into the kitchen for that drink, and he'll meet up with them later, when Jo's too drunk to remember having brought it up at all. 

He waves to a few people that he recognizes, mostly girls who appear to be sizing him up as he goes past, which makes him feel both newly confident and intensely shy for the first time in his life. He starts taking more sips from his beer to fill the long, awkward pauses and munching on the bag of pretzels on the counter to balance out the buzz that is steadily increasing as the moments go by. 

Eventually, he ends up in the living room stationed next to a guy from his Algebra class, who’s boring as hell but fine overall. The kid- Kevin- is blathering on about his SAT practice course, and in doing so Dean perceives him to be kind of a shield against any unwanted attention that might seek him out.  

But sometimes shields have holes. Kevin excuses himself to use the restroom- even though he's only drinking Mountain Dew, which he repeats to Dean about twenty-seven times- and in his short absence someone comes up beside Dean and leans their body on the wall beside him. 

“Hey, new kid,” says a boy in a low voice. He's taller than Dean, and he reeks of Alpha testosterone. Dean is willing to bet that this is one of the football players, fresh off the field and the team's reported glowing victory tonight. His suspicion is confirmed when the figure tells him, “Don’t think I saw you in the bleachers.”

”That’s because I wasn’t there,” Dean tells him, trying to make his own voice as deep as he can while he wiggles away from the intruder. The combination of beer and sweat and gross alpha boner is way too much for him to handle and it makes him want to gag a little. 

The football player just pouts, not moving an inch. “Aw, no. Means you missed my big field goal. Won us the game.” 

“Congrats," mutters Dean, now backing away in the other direction. 

Now the alpha moves in even closer. “You ever thought about joining the team?” 

“No.” 

“Hmm. That's a shame. Think you’ve got the build for it.” 

Dean turns his head suddenly when the guy lays a hand on his arm. There isn’t anything necessarily threatening in the gesture, but something in it puts him on edge. It’s like a sense memory, calling him back to the night by the bus station. Like his body is reminding him to be prepared for the worst.

There’s always that latent threat when Alphas are involved. Even though Dean bets he could land a mean punch on this asshole's jaw if he needed to. 

“Leave him alone,” another, larger guy barrels in, shoving the first one away from Dean, much to his relief, “Can’t you smell he’s taken?” 

“I-“ Dean starts to protest, but realizes that it would be counterproductive to his interests. 

The first guy, the knot head, doesn't move to regain his proximity to Dean, though he does narrow his eyes at the omega. There's want there, desire, a sense of entitlement, which Dean doesn't like at all. But he quickly turns his attention to the man who thwarted his efforts, and whines, “Aw, come on. Why d’you gotta spoil everything, Benny?” 

With a light hint of a southern lilt, Dean's protector warns him, “You’re about to spoil this party if you don’t learn to keep your hands to yourself.”

The knot head looks like he might be primed to do just that. For a second, Dean tries to figure out how to slip away without causing a fuss, before he decides that to do that would only be to make himself appear weak and timid, so he puffs up his chest an keeps his feet planted exactly where they are. 

But Dean's worry dissipates when the boy gives a single, lackluster shove to the one identified as Benny, and shuffles off into the dining room with his tail shamefully between his legs. Watching him go, Dean breathes out a sigh of relief, even though he hadn't really been that intimidated. Not as bad as other times, anyway. 

The remaining alpha, who is so solidly built that Dean doesn't doubt for a second that he must be a teammate of the other, offers him a grimace that shows true embarrassment on the part of his friend. “Sorry ‘bout Bart. He’s a bit of a lughead.” 

Dean bristles. “He’s just an Alpha,” he says dismissively. "They're pretty much all like that." He would know best, after all. 

The guy nods, but points a finger at Dean, as if lecturing him. “That’s fair. But just cus he's got a knot doesn't give him a right to go actin' like a meat head."

Hearing someone who actually points out when an alpha is overstepping his boundaries is pretty rare, especially someone who isn't on the receiving end of that boundary-pushing. So Dean bites his tongue and merely says, "Well, thanks." He chooses not to point out that he is more than able to defend himself and opts to be the gracious omega he's supposed to be instead. "Hope I don't need you stepping in on my behalf any time soon."

"I hope you don't either. I’m pretty sure you’d be fine in your own. You seem... scrappy." A hand is offered cordially to him. "Name's Benny, by the way."

"I'm Dean." He puts all his strength into the shake in an effort to prove his worth. Scrappy is fine but he'd rather be strong. Capable. He retracts his hand, which didn't even earn him so much as a look from the alpha, and says, "No offense there, Benny, but you sorta strike me as an Alpha yourself."

"I am," confirms Benny with a shrug, "Just not all full of pent up junk like the rest of 'em."

"Huh." So there's two of them.

Dean pauses, looking down at his hand for a moment. Suddenly, out of nowhere, he speaks up to say, "I'm not, by the way. Taken. Like, mated or whatever."

Benny gives him a look that says he's willing to bet that is a load of horseshit. "You sure 'bout that?" he inquires as his eyebrows travel further north toward his hairline. "You certainly smell mated. Happily, but..." Dean's not sure what his face does when Benny says that, but in a flash his expression has changed completely and he's turning down the hall and beckoning Dean to join him. "Hey, follow me. I know where where Doug's dad keeps the good stuff."

Doug must be their gracious host, but Dean has neither seen nor heard from the man himself this evening so he can only work on assumptions. He does as told and follows Benny, partly because he has nothing else to do, but more because he likes the cut of this guy's jib- and it's not a bad idea to have friends in high places, when he needs them. Just one more person on his side, instead of the aternative. 

Dean sticks around for a while, even gets what he would call a healthy level of buzz on before the allure of the party starts to fade fast. He's tired and he can't do any more small talk with random people. But he did like that Benny guy.  

He calls for an uber home, because he doesn't want to tear Jo or Ash away when they're obviously having so much fun. Ash has assembled some sort of backroom gambling parlor in the office that must belong to one of the parents of the mysterious "Doug", and Jo has found herself a kissing partner out on the back porch. Dean can't tell if it's a guy or a girl, but he can tell (to his chagrin) that they're using more tongue than he's ever seen in real life. Either way, good for her. 

It's after one when he gets in, and he fully expects Cas to be knocked out cold- though he isn't surprised when he quietly slips into bed and feels the sheets rustling as Cas turns over to regard him. 

"Hey," his gruff voice croaks out, and Dean does not shiver at the sound. "You're back."

Dean moves in closer and pulls the covers up close to his chin, whispering, "Yeah."

"D'you have fun?"

"Yeah, it was alright."

Maybe he's a little more tipsy than he thought, but the touch of Cas' thigh resting against his is heaven right now. It's so muscular. Is Dean into muscles? Is he into muscle-y guys?

Weird. 

"Mm," Castiel groans, "Did you have to fend off many potential suitors? Do I have to kick some high school alpha jock's butt?"

A pleased smile sits on Dean's lips. "Huh. That sounds like some territorial peacocking, Mr. High and Mighty," he contends, barely containing his laughter.

Cas only grunts and throws an arm around Dean's middle. "Sue me."

Dean settles his body into the touch, letting his hips sink into the mattress and tilting his face so that his eyes locked with the alpha's. He feels emboldened by the little alcohol left in his system and that must be what gives him the confidence to whisper,  "I'd rather kiss you."

So Castiel leans up and grabs Dean's chin with one hand, directing his face with just that right degree of Alpha force that makes Dean weaker than he likes to admit. When he feels Cas' lips against his own, he hears himself make a whining noise that he previously hadn't known himself capable of. Castiel clearly takes a liking to that, deepening the kiss with a press of his tongue into Dean's mouth. But he ends the embrace before it goes any further, which makes Dean produce another whiny sound and makes Castiel grin with a satisfaction Dean quite likes seeing on his face.

He lies back down against the pillows and pulls Dean into him. He'd fought back at first against being the little spoon in this arrangement, but right now it's actually pretty nice to feel Cas wrapped around him in the way he won't admit to himself that he's always craving. 

He thinks about mentioning to Cas what Benny said, how he'd smelled mated. But, it's late, and that'd probably be a whole conversation that he doesn't even know how to have. And doesn't want to. Probably. 

Also, he's drunk. 

So for right now he'll snuggle in a little closer and keep his hand on that muscular thigh. 

"Dean," Cas warns lowly, with his eyes still shut, "you'd better be careful with that hand."

Dean smirks mischievously and keeps his hand exactly where it is. 


End file.
